The Samsung Galaxy A9 Star and Galaxy A9 Star Lite will be officially announced next month, according to a number of newly leaked promotional posters which appeared on Chinese social media network Weibo earlier today. Samsung’s China arm is apparently set to unveil the two devices on Thursday, June 7, with both being meant to become available for purchase a week later. A number of promotional offers are also understood to be on the cards, with Samsung seemingly planning to run them until July 10. The Galaxy A9 Star will start at 3,499 yuan, or just under $550, with that price tag being indicative of product meant to compete in the upper mid-range segment of the smartphone market.
No price tag has been attached to the Galaxy A9 Star Lite that’s expected to be a less powerful and hence less expensive device, though one of the several posters seen in the gallery below suggest the more capable handset will ship with as much as 128GB of flash memory expandable via a microSD card slot. A 3,000mAh battery is also mentioned by the newly sighted materials, though it’s still unclear whether the two smartphones will differ in terms of screen size. Both appear to be featuring Samsung‘s Infinity Display panels, Super AMOLED modules with an elongated aspect ratio of 18.5:9, presumably supporting an FHD+ resolution.
The Galaxy A9 Star and Galaxy A9 Star Lite already leaked on numerous occasions in recent weeks, with most signs pointing to China-exclusive devices. Samsung has been the largest smartphone vendor in the Far Eastern country some half a decade ago but aggressive competition priced it out of virtually every product segment and pushed the company to the brink of obsolescence, with recent estimates attributing under one-percent of China’s handset market to the Seoul-based tech giant, still the world’s largest mobile company by both shipments and sales.
