Samsung Galaxy S8 Shipment Goal at 60 Million Units, Small Batch to Be Released Early: Reports

South Korean consume electronics giant Samsung is hoping to make a comeback with its 2017 flagship, the Galaxy S8, and the smartphone is expected to sport a lot of innovative features. To make up for last year's Galaxy Note 7 debacle, Samsung has set ambitious goals for itself and is looking to ship as many as 60 million units of the Galaxy S8 in one year, a report claims.

Samsung's ambitious sales goal heavily depends on the supply of parts from vendors, and the customer's reaction to the flagship. "The mass production of the Samsung Galaxy S8 will start in March, when Samsung will begin rolling out 5 million units of the S8 each month after it receives electronic parts in February from its main vendors, including camera iris scanner module maker Partron and camera lens firm Sekonix," an anonymous source told The Investor.

This 60-million unit shipment goal is much higher than the flagship shipments the company has made in the past three years. To put things into perspective, the publication claims the total shipments of the Samsung Galaxy S7 shipment were 48 million units, while the Samsung Galaxy S6 and Samsung Galaxy S5 shipments were 45 million units. Samsung looks to go back to the early days when its flagship 'S' series was a blockbuster hit. Notably, Samsung sold a record 70 million handsets of the 2013 Samsung Galaxy S4, and 65 million units of the 2012 Samsung Galaxy S3.

In addition, Samsung may even drop a batch of the Galaxy S8 units a little earlier than the delayed April launch. "There is a possibility of the S8 phones being showcased a month or two ahead of the actual release date," another anonymous insider told the publication.

This hints that even though unveil may be early, shipments won't start before mid-April. Samsung is even relying on its Galaxy A and Galaxy J series to rake in some profits this year. The Investor also reports that the company looks to ship around 20 million Galaxy A handsets and 100 million of the lower-end Galaxy J series handsets this year.

Samsung has outlined a lot of work for itself this year with these ambitious sales targets. With the slowing smartphone market, it will be a challenge to convince buyers to opt for its handsets over the others. Furthermore, the many Chinese smartphone companies that have saturated the most premium markets will add to its woes.

(Also see: Samsung Galaxy S8 Rumours Roundup: Here's Everything You Need to Know)

In any case, the Samsung Galaxy S8 looks promising with its large display, two size variants, optical fingerprint sensor, no Home Button, and no audio jack. It is expected to be slightly costlier than the Galaxy S7 last year due to major design changes.