Verizon’s smartphone release calendar has leaked, and it shows all of the usual suspects. But there is one phone that seems to be missing, which is the LG V60 ThinQ (or whatever LG decides to call it this time around).
Famed leaker, Evan Blass (or @evleaks on Twitter) posted the 2019 Verizon Marketing Calendar today, and it shows the dates for the Samsung Galaxy Note10 launch, which looks to be around late August. Then the iPhone launch around late September and the Google Pixel 4 launch, that looks to be about mid-October. These time frames all line up with their launches last year, so that isn’t a huge surprise.
The surprise here, however, is that there is no mention of LG whatsoever. Now, obviously, Verizon doesn’t have every phone that it’ll be launching, on this calendar, but instead it has all of the flagships. And an LG V60 ThinQ would definitely be a flagship smartphone for Verizon to market and start selling.
To play devil’s advocate here, it could also mean that LG hasn’t pinned down a date for launching its newest flagship smartphone. But given that it is already June, the phone would be in its final stages of development, with the team working on a launch event for the phone. And that would mean that it has already “sold” the device to carrier partners. So it is very possible that there won’t be one coming this year, and that’s unfortunate for LG.
There’s also the chance that the LG V60 ThinQ could be launching on other carriers, and not coming to Verizon. But that isn’t likely. LG and Verizon have a great relationship, and all of LG’s smartphones have launched on Verizon – even down to the V10, which only came to two carriers. So with Verizon not selling the phone, it likely means it doesn’t exist.
LG has been getting away from its typical release schedule as of late, and even released the V50 ThinQ 5G earlier this year, just a few months after the LG V40 ThinQ was announced and released. Getting three V-series smartphones within a year would be a bit crazy – but then again, LG did this last year with the V30S ThinQ, V35 ThinQ and V40 ThinQ, so it’s not unprecedented.
The company has stressed that it is only launching smartphones when the phone is ready, not at specific times of the year. So the phone might not be ready for the fall. But that’s going to make things pretty tough for LG going into the holiday season, which is when a lot of people buy a new smartphone.
It’s important to note that we need to take this leak with a grain of salt. Not necessarily because we don’t trust Evleaks, he’s been leaking smartphones for years, and has a pretty stellar record of being accurate and correct. But, we do not know when this calendar was released. The left-side shows the Pixel 3a which launched back in May. So this could have been created in May or even April. And knowing how quickly these things move, that is an eternity ago in the smartphone world.