Samsung S10 series phones may arrive in India in March: Know specs, prices here

South Korean smartphone maker Samsung on Thursday launched its flagship smartphones Galaxy S10, Galaxy S10+, a cheaper Galaxy S10e at its Unpacked event at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium here after weeks of detailed leaks and rumours. According to 91mobiles.com, the new range of Galaxy phones are expected to be launched on March 7, 2019, in India.

The company also unveiled a nearly $2,000 folding smartphone, Galaxy Fold, in a bid to top the technology of Apple Inc and Chinese rivals and reignite consumer interest amid slumping sales.

Samsung's Galaxy S10 is priced at Rs $849 and has almost similar features as its high-end sibling Galaxy S10+, except for a slightly smaller display and a front-facing camera with portrait mode. Its expected price for the Indian market is around Rs 65,000.

The costliest of the lot is Galaxy S10+ that adds a 6.4-inch screen and a selfie camera for portrait selfies and costs about $999. The phone's expected Indian price is around Rs 71,000. The company would reportedly sell a super premium model with a stronger ceramic body, 12GB RAM and a massive 1TB of storage out of the box variant with 128GB internal storage and 8GB RAM.

Galaxy S10e, the rival to iPhone's XR, is priced at $749. Galaxy S10e lacks the features present in S10 and S10+, including the new in-screen fingerprint scanner, the advanced cameras or the curved displays with an exception of the brand new Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 processor, present in all the new models. Its expected price for Indian customers is Rs 53,500.

It also unveiled a revolutionary foldable smartphone, Galaxy Fold on Wednesday which would cost nearly $2,000, or about Rs 1,47,000 for the Indian customers. The launch of the foldable phone is in a bid to top the technology of Apple Inc and Chinese rivals and reignite consumer interest amid slumping sales.

The Galaxy Fold will go on sale on April 26 and take advantage of new and faster 5G mobile networks. The device looks similar to a conventional smartphone, but then opens like a book to reveal a display the size of a small tablet at 7.3 inches (18.5 cm).

And even though the $1,980 starting price is steep, some dedicated Samsung fans said they would pay it. Navneet Kumar Singh, a Samsung enthusiast from India who travelled to San Francisco to watch the launch, is ready to place his order.

"The prices of the flagship models have been a little aggressive in India," he said, "But in the end, if you invest the money you're getting a different experience."

The company expects to unveil one smartphone from the Galaxy A series every month beginning in March to generate about $4 billion in 2019.

The phones, targeted at millennials, will be priced between Rs 10,000 ($141) to Rs 50,000 ($703),  Ranjivjit Singh, Samsung India's chief marketing officer, told Reuters in a telephone interview.

Samsung's mobile phone sales in India hit Rs 37,350 crore in the year to end-March 2018, according to regulatory filings sourced by paper.vc, a business intelligence platform.

India, the world's second-biggest mobile phone market, will be among the first few geographies where new A series phones, comprising more than four devices, will be launched, Singh said.

The company has also been focused on India after facing intense competition from Chinese rivals such as Xiaomi Corp, Oppo and Vivo.

Samsung, which locally assembles all phones it sells in India, ended 2018 with a 24 percent share of the Indian market by shipments, behind Xiaomi's 28 percent, according to Hong Kong-based tech researcher Counterpoint.