Samsung’s ‘magic’ that swallowed up the off-season: A market turnaround brought on by Galaxy S26 and Exynos > News

The refund event that Samsung Electronics has been running since the 8th is a large-scale domestic demand promotion project encompassing home appliances and mobile devices, and has completely changed the landscape of the telecommunications market. The method of returning 20% ​​of the purchase price as a digital Onnuri gift certificate upon activation of a smartphone effectively made consumers feel the effect of a price reduction of hundreds of thousands of won. In fact, just four days after the event began, the number of new openings increased by more than 30% compared to the previous year, quenching the thirst of the market. This is a representative example of how telecom companies can replace the marketing costs they have been pouring into in fierce competition with the manufacturer's resources, while still gaining the practical benefit of attracting subscribers.

Another protagonist of this promotion is ‘Exynos’, the mobile brain that has returned to the flagship lineup. The Exynos 2600, which revealed its presence through the Galaxy S26 series, led a rebound in global market share by proving the design capabilities of Samsung Electronics' System LSI Division and the stability of the foundry process. Samsung's strategy of relieving the enormous cost burden it experienced last year due to increased dependence on Qualcomm chips by increasing the proportion of its own chips was successful. This goes beyond simply lowering component costs and demonstrates Samsung's strong will to preemptively build a customized semiconductor ecosystem in preparation for the future agentic AI era.

Samsung Electronics' strategy for the second half of the year is elaborately planned through the organic combination of the semiconductor and finished product divisions. At the global strategy meeting to be held starting on the 16th, the global expansion of foldable phones and securing competitiveness in next-generation memory, led by HBM4, will be discussed as key agenda items. In particular, despite uncertain external environments such as political instability in the Middle East and high exchange rates, Samsung is presenting a clear roadmap to early stabilize the 2-nano process and dominate the custom HBM market. Each division plans to go beyond simply protecting profitability and maintain global technological hegemony through a ‘full stack’ strategy centered on future growth engines such as AI accelerators and data center infrastructure.

Front-line distribution sites say that this refund event went beyond a simple promotion and brought about a real change in purchasing patterns. Consumers who previously had to search for so-called ‘holy places’ can now get the latest devices at reasonable prices through manufacturers’ benefits at regular stores. These changes laid the foundation for telecommunications companies to secure subscribers without unreasonably raising their own subsidies, which ultimately resulted in improved marketing cost efficiency across the telecommunications market. The manufacturer's bold decision killed two birds with one stone: overcoming the off-season in the telecommunications industry and revitalizing domestic demand.