According to a report from Bloomberg, Samsung is planning to announced its next flagship phone, the Galaxy S9, in February. The flagship phone is expected to launch as early as March.
If Samsung really does go through with these plans, it would actually be an earlier announcement of a new model than usual. Typically, Samsung announces new devices in March and released to the public in April, and that’s what it’s done in the years past.
The difference for Samsung here is the iPhone X. Apple’s iPhone X has stolen a lot of thunder from Samsung (and other providers) since it was announced, and now Samsung is looking to bring its next installation of Galaxy flagship phones to the market as soon as possible to compete with the iPhone X. The Galaxy S9 will be accompanied by the S9 Plus and be more of an iterative update.
VentureBeat’s Evan Blass claims that the devices will have faster processors (Qualcomm Snapdragon 845), and will also have updated cameras. A February release for Samsung is a bit unusual but seeing as how fierce the competition is, it shouldn’t really surprise anyone that Samsung is looking to bring Galaxy S9 and S9 Plus to compete better with the rest of the market.