The Samsung news has been coming in hot and heavy lately in the buildup to Mobile World Congress in Barcelona Spain later this month. Just this morning we saw a benchmark leak for one of their upcoming three tablets, and then later in the afternoon got six more benchmarks for handsets out of the rumored eight that are supposed to be in the pipeline. None of these however are for the upcoming flagship Galaxy S IV.
We have known for a couple of days that the manufacturer had no plans to hold a press conference this year in Barcelona which led many to believe that the S IV would be absent at the upcoming trade show. Now we finally have confirmation. According to CNET, “a person familiar with its launch plans” confirms that the Galaxy S IV will not be unveiled at MWC and that Samsung will be having their own separate event. Samsung of course “declined to comment” when asked by CNET for a response to the leak.
This really shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone though because Samsung did the same thing last year with their flagship Galaxy S III. That phone was announced last May right before the CTIA wireless conference and while it certainly didn’t hinder the S III’s sales it did take a lot of the wind out of CTIA’s sails.
With more and more companies holding their own events to announce their flagship devices these trade shows are becoming less significant. That’s not to say they don’t have their purpose. It’s a great way to showcase your secondary device and get press, but it’s also easy to get lost in the crowd in that setting. However by having your own event you are all but ensuring a captive audience as well as generating much more buzz for your product.
These days it’s not just the Apples, Googles and Samsungs of the world having separate events either. HTC is having an event on February 19th in New York City and its speculated that their flagship phone the M7 will be announced. On top of that, just the other day we had all the hoopla over the new BlackBerry offerings.
No doubt there are going to be a lot of disappointed people after hearing this news but Samsung typically brings the goods with their flagship phones. So when the Galaxy S IV is eventually announced It should absolutely be worth the wait.
Source: CNET