By Hyunjoo Jin

SEOUL/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Samsung Electronics on Wednesday unveiled its latest Galaxy S25 smartphones, powered by Qualcomm (NASDAQ: ) chips and Google’s artificial intelligence model, hoping that the -upgraded AI features could boost sales and hold back Apple (NASDAQ). 🙂 and Chinese rivals.

Samsung (KS:) also previewed a slimmer version of its flagship models at the end of an event in California, aiming to launch the Galaxy S25 Edge in the first half of this year before the Apple’s expected launch of its slimmer iPhone.

Samsung was faster than Apple in launching an AI-powered smartphone but failed to regain its crown in the global smartphone market last year, pressured by competition from its US rival in the premium market and the Chinese company in the lower part.

“We are one step ahead of the industry in terms of offering AI features. I believe we are going in the right direction,” Park Ji-sun, the executive vice president who leads Samsung’s Language AI team, said to Reuters.

Samsung has kept the prices of the Galaxy S25 series unchanged at between $799 and $1,299.

The new Galaxy S25 uses Gemini offered by Alphabet (NASDAQ:)’s Google as its default AI engine, and features Samsung’s upgraded in-house voice assistant, Bixby, Park said.

The two devices complement each other, and Bixby plays a key role at Samsung, whose products range from mobile phones to TVs and home appliances, he said.

Thomas Husson, an analyst at Forrester, said that differentiating Bixby is a challenge for Samsung.

“I don’t think there’s really a killer application right now that you know is going to convince them (consumers), ‘OK, I’m going to buy this because it’s an AI smartphone,'” he said.

Husson added, however, that AI features can create a halo effect around the Samsung brand.

The Galaxy S25 will offer a more personalized AI experience. For example, the service “Karon Mubo” – which makes recommendations to users based on personalized data stored and processed by the phone for privacy reasons – will show a set of customized items such as calendars, news and room air temperature and carbon dioxide. level, said Park.

The phone can perform many tasks with a single command, such as finding upcoming sports events and then adding them to users’ calendars.

Samsung shares fell 1.1%, lagging the broader market’s 0.4% loss.

Samsung uses Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Mobile Platform for the entire Galaxy S25 line, ditching its own Exynos mobile chip, a major shift in strategy for a company that previously used both to power more in bargaining with suppliers.

The use of the Qualcomm chip is a setback for South Korea’s chip business, which counts its mobile division as one of its major customers.

Samsung did not say why it decided not to use its own chips in the new model.

A person familiar with the matter said that Samsung intends to use the Exynos chip in foldable phones that will be launched later this year.

“Sales of the Galaxy S25 series are significant at a time when Samsung’s foldable phone sales have stagnated in the face of challenges from Chinese companies,” said Lim Su-jeong, associate director of research firm Counterpoint.

Samsung’s preliminary fourth-quarter profit, released earlier this month, missed estimates by a large margin due to chip development costs and increased competition in the smartphone market.