Samsung confirmed it will not announce a successor to its flagship Galaxy S II Android smartphone later this month at the Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona, Spain, squashing rumors to the contrary.
The world's second largest smartphone maker, which has capitalized on a wave of success from its Galaxy franchise, said it will wait until later this year to unveil its new flagship device. "Samsung is looking forward to introducing and demonstrating exciting new mobile products at Mobile World Congress 2012," the company said in a statement to U.K. technology site TechRadar. "The successor to the Galaxy S II smartphone will be unveiled at a separate Samsung-hosted event in the first half of the year, closer to commercial availability of the product. Samsung stays committed to providing the best possible mobile experiences for customers around the world."
Earlier rumors had indicated that the next Galaxy S phone would arrive at the major industry trade show, but according to The Verge, which cited unnamed sources, the device will arrive before the summer. According to The Verge, Samsung wants to announce the phone closer to its availability in the U.S. market. (The Galaxy S II arrived in the United States months after Samsung announced the gadget at last year's MWC.)
So what might those "exciting new mobile products" be that Samsung will introduce at this year's MWC? Speculation has centered on a refresh of the company's GalaxyTab tablet lineup, an LTE-capable smartphone running Microsoft's (NASDAQ:MSFT) Windows Phone and perhaps a tablet or other product running the Linux-based device software platform Tizen. Last month Samsung said it was considering merging its homegrown bada platform with Tizen.
Samsung reported that its fourth-quarter smartphones shipments were up 30 percent from the third quarter. However, according to analysts, Samsung in the fourth quarter lost its spot as the world's largest smartphone maker to Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), which sold a record 37 million iPhones in the quarter. Analysts estimated Samsung shipped around 36 million smartphones in the quarter.
For more:
- see this TechRadar article
- see this The Verge article
- see this PC Magazine article
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