Samsung is planning to start the mass production of the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9 Plus in December, South Korean media reported Wednesday, with no specific sources being cited. The Seoul-based phone maker is said to have already completed a pilot production run of its upcoming Android flagships in October and has allegedly finalized their design, thus being all set for flow production. It’s still unclear how many units is Samsung targeting for its initial shipments but with the Galaxy S8 series reportedly having its first manufacturing batch set at approximately 17 million units, the successors to the widely popular smartphones are unlikely to fall below that mark, though the final number of manufactured units ready for launch will depend on Samsung’s yield rates that are often unpredictable in the context of cutting-edge technologies being made at scale.
Latest reports also add more credence to previous rumors that the Galaxy S9 lineup will miss out on an optical fingerprint scanner as Samsung once again failed to commercialize the technology in time, having originally attempted to implement it into the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus before once again unsuccessfully trying to embed a fingerprint reader into the display panel of the Galaxy Note 8. Insiders claim that Samsung remains adamant to eventually increase its yield rates to the point of having a commercially viable on-screen scanner, adding that the South Korean original equipment manufacturer will have another go at the demanding technology with the Galaxy Note 9 that’s expected to launch in the second half of summer 2018.
The Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9 Plus are rumored to succeed the 5.8-inch and 6.2-inch Infinity Display panels of their predecessors and should also boast QHD+ screens with a tall aspect ratio of 18.5:9. Samsung reportedly already reserved initial batches of Qualcomm’s unannounced Snapdragon 845 SoC for the Galaxy S9-series devices meant to be sold in the United States and China, whereas international models are expected to be powered by a Samsung-made silicon that may be called the Exynos 9810. The bezel-less handsets should offer 6GB of RAM and 64GB of internal flash memory at a minimum, in addition to featuring a dedicated Bixby button like the previous flagship duo from Samsung.