, Samsung is ready to share official details about the pre-order numbers of its latest ultra-high-end handsets
as well, and although these also look great at first glance, a few interesting things stand out, diminishing the
trio’s early regional achievements… to a certain degree.
The S26 Ultra is the only one that matters
At least for the time being, it’s almost like the “vanilla” S26 and the S26 Plus don’t exist, as a whopping 80 percent of the family’s US pre-orders so far have gone to the state-of-the-art 6.9-inch model with a built-in S Pen and Privacy Display functionality.
Pre-orders, mind you, are still open until tomorrow, March 11, at which point the Galaxy S26 lineup will be considered actually released, but clearly, there’s nothing the Ultra’s little brothers can do to make up that ground now. Interestingly (although also unsurprisingly), Samsung isn’t saying what slice of the remaining 20 percent of regional pre-orders has gone to the compact Galaxy S26, which I’m pretty sure is still a lot more popular than the 6.7-inch S26+.
This is similar to how the company communicated in its domestic market of South Korea, where the Galaxy S26 Ultra actually held a smaller initial advantage over the S26 and S26 Plus, “only” accounting for “about” 70 percent of the 1.35 million unit pre-orders counted by Friday, March 6.
The Galaxy S26 family is “nearly” 25 percent up
That’s definitely a solid improvement over the Galaxy S25 trio in a similar timeframe last year, but with the S26 Ultra so dominant in its family, you really have to wonder how much (or how little) the base Galaxy S26 and S26 Plus have contributed to this progress.
Probably, extremely little, which makes it difficult for Samsung to sustain the box-office growth of the S26 trio in the long run, as super-expensive devices like the S26 Ultra tend to lose some of their mass appeal after a few months in stores (especially if they’re not substantially and frequently discounted).
Still, this is a clear and undeniable (early) victory for the world’s number two smartphone vendor, which definitely needed to put one in the win column after a shaky 2025 and some risky price hikes (for the S26 and S26+ in particular).
Interestingly, Samsung claims that major US carriers have registered “more than a 70 percent increase in pre-orders” compared to the S25 series, while retailers “including Best Buy” are seeing “more than double the pre-order volumes than the previous generation.” As impressive as that sounds, it doesn’t really explain how Galaxy S26 series pre-orders are up only 25 percent in the US, making me believe that the family’s numbers are (massively) down on Samsung’s official regional e-store. Otherwise, I don’t think the math is mathing.
What’s next for the Galaxy S26 trio?
Well, Samsung might make a similar announcement for European markets like the UK or even the entire old continent, but only if the numbers are good enough in those regions as well. Otherwise, we’ll probably get radio silence, then some of the best pre-order deals will go away and… hopefully get replaced with better ones soon, at least as far as the Galaxy S26 and the S26+ are concerned.
Those two phones clearly need all the help they can get to find their audiences, and as chunky as the S26 Ultra profit margins might be, I believe that Samsung badly needs at least one of the smaller models to succeed as well. Otherwise, it’s going to be pretty hard to release next year’s Galaxy S27 in more than an (Ultra) variant.
