by It was beginning to look like Samsung’s FE series would no longer get any entries. After all, there was no Samsung Galaxy S22 FE, and the Samsung Galaxy S21 FE reportedly didn’t sell brilliantly. But it sounds like Samsung isn’t done with the line of phones, and not only that, the company may have figured out how to make them profitable again.
According to South Korean publication Hankooki (opens in new tab) (via SamMobile (opens in new tab)) Samsung plans to release a Samsung Galaxy S23 FE in August or September this year.
The site doesn’t have any details on the specs of the Samsung Galaxy S23 FE, but adds that there doesn’t seem to be a Samsung Galaxy A74, which would have been this year’s successor to the Galaxy A73.
It seems these two things are linked as both the FE series and A7 series are upper mid-range phones so by releasing new models in both Samsung risks cannibalizing its own sales. So if there is no Galaxy A74, the Samsung Galaxy S23 FE will have more potential buyers.
Samsung’s Galaxy S series is also arguably more recognizable and better known than the A series, so it makes sense to focus on a Galaxy S-branded phone.
The same site also claims there will be no Samsung Galaxy S22 FE, which isn’t too surprising at this point given that the Samsung Galaxy S23 series has now launched, but there was a leak in January that pointed to the S22 FE indicated it would still land in April or later, so we hadn’t fully counted it.
Of course, we would take all this with a pinch of salt for now, especially as there is no real evidence of the existence of the Samsung Galaxy S23 FE beyond this one leak.
Analysis: Samsung may have finally gotten the timing right
Samsung’s FE phones not only face competition from the Galaxy A series, but also competition from the mainline Galaxy S, and this hasn’t been helped by their launch timing so far.
The Samsung Galaxy S21 FE only landed in January 2022 – just a month before the launch of the main Samsung Galaxy S22 models. So it felt dated almost immediately, and while it was a lot cheaper, it wasn’t necessarily cheaper than the standard Samsung Galaxy S21, which had been on the market for a year at the time and had seen numerous price cuts. That made the S21 FE a hard-to-sell and oddly-positioned phone.
The Samsung Galaxy S20 FE had similar issues, but to a much lesser extent, since it launched in September 2020 – about seven months after the Samsung Galaxy S20 and about four months before the Samsung Galaxy S21 was launched.
This FE fared much better, and the fact that it was closer to the rest of the S20 line and farther from the S21 series than the S21 FE was with its peers is probably a big factor in that.
If the above report is correct, then Samsung will be back around that time and might even launch the Galaxy S23 FE a month earlier, in August. If the company gets the price and specs right – and there’s said to be no A7 competitor – this has the potential to be the most successful FE yet, and quite possibly one of Samsung’s best phones too.
