Samsung to begin Galaxy S21 FE production in September

Samsung will begin mass production of the Galaxy S21 Fand Edition (FE) smartphone next month, TheElec has learned.

The South Korean tech giant will begin the production of the key components that goes into the phone next month.

The company originally intended to begin mass production during the first half of the year, with sales beginning during the third quarter.

However, shortage of application processors have caused the company to postpone its launch plan for the phone by around four months.

Samsung also initially aimed at shipping around 15 million units of the model but has readjusted this target to around early-10 million units, or around 3 million less units.

The South Korean tech giant also so intends to begin the component production of the Galaxy S22 series in November. The phones will officially launch in January.

The launch of Galaxy S21 FE is crucial for Samsung Mobile as it is its key standard phone for the remainder of 2021. The company recently launched its new foldable phones Galaxy Z Fold 3 and Z Flip 3, but it intends to ship only up to 7 million units of these phones.

The shortage of application processors means Samsung will likely see its smartphone shipment decline in the third quarter compared to a year ago.

Earlier this year, Samsung had aimed to ship around 290 million units to 300 million units of smartphones this year, but has lowered to annual goal to 260 million units.

People familiar with the matter told TheElec that the usually popular phone series Galaxy A52 and A72 sold less than expected this year.

The two models also suffered from the shortage of application processors, they said.