Samsung Electronics has officially announced that it will not launch its all-new Galaxy A (2017) series devices in the United States. The entire lineup, however, will launch in the UK fairly soon, as was announced by the company earlier this week. The lineup is an upgrade to the second-generation Galaxy A range that was launched last year by the South Korean consumer electronics company after the original Galaxy A devices, launched in late 2014, did decent business in many emerging markets around the world. While last year’s range included four Galaxy A devices, this year the company has only launched three devices so far – the Galaxy A3 (2017), the Galaxy A5 (2017) and the Galaxy A7 (2017), all of which come with some really nice features that haven’t been seen in any of Samsung’s mid-range handsets until now.
While the Galaxy A series from Samsung is still a step down from the company’s flagship Galaxy S line that has often been ranked as the best-selling premium smartphone in many markets worldwide, the devices unveiled earlier this month come with quite a few features that have only been available on some of the more recent Galaxy S-series devices until now. Such features include a full metallic build that Samsung has only recently started incorporating into its more affordable handsets, the IP68 rating that denotes waterproofing and dustproofing, and a microSD card slot that was once pretty common among Android handsets, but of late, is becoming increasingly rare as manufacturers migrate from plastic to metal as the build material of choice for their mid-range and even entry-level models in some cases.
Just yesterday, Samsung released its first 30-second TV commercial that highlighted some of the features the company has brought to its all-new smartphone line this year. At that stage it looked very likely that the company is gearing up for a grand global rollout of the Galaxy A (2017) lineup, which is basically Samsung’s first major launch since the Galaxy Note 7 fiasco last year. Either way, with Samsung announcing that it won’t be launching the Galaxy A (2017) devices in the U.S., it will be interesting to see what the company does to address the country’s prepaid market that is growing in popularity ever since the major carriers started doing away with the subsidy regime back in late 2015.