Despite minimal upgrades, the Galaxy S25 Ultra is pushing impressive pre-order numbers

According to a new report from South Korean outlet ET News (via Tarun Vats), early Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra sales figures are looking rather promising. Reportedly, South Korean pre-order sales of the S25 Ultra currently overshadow the rest of the S25 lineup by a margin of between 60 and 70 percent. It’s unclear if the US market is experiencing similar pre-order adoption.

The titanium black and titanium white silver S25 Ultra colorways purport to be the most popular flavors of the S25 Ultra, at least within Samsung’s domestic market of South Korea. For the base S25 and its plus-sized sibling, “many customers chose ice blue and silver shadow,” says ET News.

While this report does indicate the S25 Ultra’s relative popularity within the S25 lineup, it doesn’t provide us with any concrete data on the number of pre-orders or units being shipped out to customers.

South Korean cellular carrier SK Telecom has gone on record saying that “the overall pre-order sales atmosphere is similar to that of its predecessor, the Galaxy S24,” though it’s still too early to make any definitive statements on sales metrics.

Samsung first announced its Galaxy S25 flagship phone series at a Galaxy Unpacked keynote on January 22, with the company opening up the pre-order floodgates soon after. The handset line, which consists of the Galaxy S25, the Galaxy S25+, and the Galaxy S25 Ultra, is slated for general availability on February 7.

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As far as smartphone updates go, Samsung’s Galaxy S25, S25+, and S25 Ultra are incredibly incremental.

As a hardware refresh, the Galaxy S25 Ultra is very iterative

Major year-over-year changes include a new processor, a slightly tweaked exterior, and a new ultra-wide camera sensor

Across the tech space, there’s a growing consensus that the Galaxy S25 Ultra is one of Samsung’s most iterative releases in recent memory. The South Korean tech giant subtly tweaked the hardware proportions of the device when compared to its predecessor, adding a more prominent set of rear camera rings into the mix as well.

Internally, the S25 Ultra is outfitted with Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, and Samsung has sourced a higher-resolution ultra-wide sensor for the rear camera setup. Most other specifications, meanwhile, remain unchanged year over year.

It’s no secret that candy bar style smartphone innovation has largely plateaued, and Samsung is as much a victim of this as any other hardware maker. The company is instead hyping up its Galaxy AI feature set as a differentiating factor, but its unclear whether this will be enough to convince customers to dish out on a full-blown hardware upgrade.

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