After reading into the offer terms of Samsung’s Gear VR giveaway for S7 pre-orders, which appeared to limit the number of free units to 300,000 in the US, Samsung has reached out to clarify that they’re actually giving away a much greater number.

While the promotion rules do specify that up to 300,000 Gear VR units could be given away as part of the US promotion, a Samsung representative reached out to clarify that this is only part of the story. Those particular rules only govern the stock that will be given away by Samsung directly, which includes pre-orders through the company itself and several cellular carriers.

However, a number of major retailers are not goverend by those rules and have seperate stock to give away. The retailers not falling under Samsung’s own promo terms are Best Buy, Costco, Sprint, and Target. We’ve update our prior article to make this clear (P.S. the pre-order giveaway runs from now until March 18th).

The Samsung representative wasn’t specific as to the actual figure, but said that 300,000 is “only portion of the available units in the promotion in the US,” and “grossly understates” the number of units being given away in total, which includes additional stock in other territories.

All and all, it sounds like Samsung could be giving away upward of 1 million Gear VR units through the promotion which would be a huge increase in the size of the ecosystem (something that Gear VR developers are surely smiling about).

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Ben is the world's most senior professional analyst solely dedicated to the XR industry, having founded Road to VR in 2011—a year before the Oculus Kickstarter sparked a resurgence that led to the modern XR landscape. He has authored more than 3,000 articles chronicling the evolution of the XR industry over more than a decade. With that unique perspective, Ben has been consistently recognized as one of the most influential voices in XR, giving keynotes and joining panel and podcast discussions at key industry events. He is a self-described "journalist and analyst, not evangelist."
  • cdm283813

    Nothing but good news.

  • Arturo

    fanmade stereo 3D slideshow of GEAR VR: https://youtu.be/PXz4qXAAK1U

  • Josh Stewart

    I pre-ordered with AT&T. I will be sad if they run out.

    • Joshua Carroll

      I pre ordered 5 galaxy s7 from talent. 5 free gear vrs and $500 worth of talent gift cards for pre ordering

  • Bitofaquestionmark

    Samsung has already backed out on their promise. I knew this would happen. They are no longer giving people VR’s that bought the S7 as they promised. They are telling people they aren’t getting them. Way to keep customers happy Samsung