Samsung’s Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9 Plus will be released in early March, shortly after their February announcement that’s expected to come at the next iteration of Mobile World Congress, South Korean outlet ET News reported on Tuesday, citing industry sources. The development suggests Samsung may be shortening its flagship pre-order period that traditionally runs for approximately a month, as was the case with the last several generations of the company’s premium offerings. Should the Seoul-based tech giant truly decide on releasing the Galaxy S9 lineup in early March, consumers may not have more than a couple of weeks’ time to place advanced orders on the firm’s high-end mobile devices.
The report doesn’t go into any details regarding the reasoning for Samsung’s supposed decision to not stick with its usual flagship release pattern and make the Galaxy S9 lineup available for purchase in late March, though the commercial performance of its existing Android devices isn’t likely to have majorly contributed to the development. According to recent reports, the South Korean phone maker completed all research and prototyping of the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9 Plus ahead of internal expectations and already had a successful trial production run of its new offerings in October, whereas its part suppliers and manufacturing operations would both allow for a global release of the devices as early as January. That state of affairs is also what prompted rumors about the Galaxy S9 lineup making an appearance at CES 2018, though Samsung already downplayed that possibility earlier this month. Instead, the company is said to be extremely pleased with the performance of both the Galaxy Note 8 and Galaxy S8 series and is still counting on strong sales of its 2017 flagships in the first quarter of 2018.
According to the same report, the Galaxy S9 lineup will feature a stacked board design reminiscent of the one Apple utilized for the iPhone X. The layout visualized below would allow Samsung to save additional space compared to relying on a more traditional motherboard and be left with more room that would most likely be used for equipping its next-generation Android smartphones with larger batteries. Finally, sources reiterated that only the 6.2-inch Galaxy S9 Plus is set to feature a dual-camera setup, whereas its 5.8-inch counterpart is expected to provide a user experience that’s largely identical to the one offered by its direct predecessor.