Samsung Electronics Co. has received 650,000 pre-orders for its Galaxy Note 8 series in five days, a new high for the company’s premium phone series, raising expectations that it would give another chance for the company to restore the lost trust from consumers during the Galaxy Note 7 debacle.

Koh Dong-jin, president of the mobile communications business at Samsung Electronics, said at a Galaxy Note 8 media event on Tuesday that the pre-order volume for the new Galaxy Note handset reached 650,000 over five days since the pre-sale began on September 7. This is 2.5 times more than its predecessor’s record.

First-day orders in Korea alone were 395,000, already overwhelming 380,000 13-day pre-orders for the Galaxy Note 7, and responses from 40 countries have also been “very encouraging,” said Koh.

The company has been going all out to regain trust from consumers after last year’s fiasco with its predecessor Note 7, whose fire-prone batteries resulted in a worldwide recall followed by the discontinuation of the phone that cost the firm billions of dollars.

Koh also confirmed that the Korean tech giant is preparing to roll out a foldable phone next year, saying that it is currently working to address “some technological problems” in the phone and aims to release the error-less final product.

The company aims to showcase Bixby 2.0 with its development roadmap at Samsung Developer Conference in October, Koh said, assuring that external developers will be able to participate in upgrading its digital voice assistant.

“It is critical to create the Bixby ecosystem and cooperate with external developers for Bixby,” said Koh.

By Song Sung-hoon and Seo Dong-cheol

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business Newspaper & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]