It looks like the modest improvements the Galaxy S9 packs over its predecessor has failed to attract new customers. A new report from Korea claims that the first day sales of the Galaxy S9 in South Korea were only about 70 percent of that of the Galaxy S8.

The Yonhap report citing industry sources claims that Samsung sold 180,000 units of the Galaxy S9 through the three major carriers in South Korea on launch, a fair bit lower than the 260,000 units sold the company of the Galaxy S8. The launch day sales figure of the Galaxy S8 was the best in the Galaxy S lineup and the Galaxy S9 with its modest improvements was not expected to surpass its opening day sales numbers. However, the pre-order numbers are still far lower than what most analysts expected.

The Samsung Galaxy S9 is currently only available for pre-order customers in South Korea. The handset goes on sale across major markets in the world later this week.

Given how similar the Galaxy S9 looks to its predecessor and the modest improvement it packs, it is unlikely that Samsung’s latest flagship handset will end up surpassing the sales of its predecessor. Despite this though and the slowdown in smartphone sales overall, Samsung is optimistic about the Galaxy S9. It has reportedly set a target of shipping 43 million units of the Galaxy S9 this year. That’s a couple of million higher than its target for the Galaxy S8, though a fair bit less than the 50 million target it had set for the Galaxy S7.

The slow start to the Galaxy S9 sales, however, means that Samsung might have to promote the handset heavily and offer attractive deals on it to entice customers into buying it.