Samsung Electronics’ flagship Galaxy S7 is off to a promising start, with its sales in the U.S., the home turf of its archrival Apple’s iPhone, soaring 30 percent in the first month of sales from a year ago.

According to a survey by analyst firm Counterpoint Research, the Galaxy S7 and its Edge variant have sold more than 10 million units over the past month since their global launch on March 11.  

The figure is up 25 percent from that of predecessor Galaxy S6 last year, found the survey based on sales data collected from 40 countries.

The U.S. is seeing up to 30 percent higher sales than last year, while sales in Western Europe and China are up 20 percent and 10 percent, respectively.

Korea, the largest market for Galaxy phones, is the only market that has seen a flat growth possibly to the relatively strong sales of the Galaxy S6 last year.

Counterpoint pointed out that launching the devices a month earlier than usual was a great strategy for Samsung while rivals like Apple and other rivals were between devices.

“Last year, demand for the Galaxy S6 Edge model was high, but because of supply constraints, Samsung lost the window of opportunity. However, this year the sales mix is almost 47 percent Edge vs. 53 percent flat models, thanks to a better supply situation for the popular curved edge display model,” said James Yan, research director in China for Counterpoint.

“However, we believe the S7 series will still face an uphill task in China as it will compete against numerous Android flagships with a similar dual edge display such as Vivo’s Xplay5 Elite and new flagships from Huawei -- the Ascend P9 and Mate 8 models.”

The firm estimated the S7 series should sell considerably better than the S6 and S5, but probably on par with the best-selling 2014 model S4 that sold more than 70 million units globally. 

By Lee Ji-yoon (jylee@heraldcorp.com)