Galaxy Fold sells out in Korea 24 hours after going on sale

Samsung has already sold out of its ultra-expensive Galaxy Fold foldable Super AMOLED smartphone/tablet hybrid in its home market of Korea. The available units in the first batch, thought to number no more than 2,500 sold out roughly 24 hours after going on sale. Although not a high volume product, it does demonstrate that early adopters are willing to pay close to US$2,000 for unproven bleeding edge technology.

The Fold’s early launch troubles have been well-documented but early hands-on with the revised design suggests that Samsung has been able to get on top of the issues that initial reviewers had with the device. The two key problems centered on a protective layer that could easily, and accidentally, be removed which is now tucked away under the edges while the fix includes a new rubber seal applied to edges of where the device folds to stop dust and debris ingress.

Samsung has suffered a backlash from unhappy customers in the US who originally pre-ordered the device only to suddenly have their pre-orders cancelled just as the device launched in Korea. Although Samsung offered affected customers $250 vouchers to offset the inconvenience, it looks as though it doesn’t have enough initial launch units to fill the prospective orders. Nonetheless, when it does relaunch in the US and select other markets later this month, we still expect to see the early units snapped up quickly as well.