14 DAY TRIAL // Now that Samsung has officially launched the Galaxy S9, the company can start talking about what’s next for its flagship phone, especially amid rumors that a name change is very likely for the 2019 generation.
Koh Dong-jin, head of the firm’s mobile division, said on the sidelines of the MWC 2018 show in Barcelona that giving up on the Galaxy S naming scheme is indeed possible. Reports that surfaced earlier this year indicated that while Samsung could retain the Galaxy lineup, the S moniker is very likely to go away.
And the Samsung executive appears to suggest that this is indeed the plan, though he told the Korea Times that this is just a proposal for the time being and no decision has been made just yet.
“Although Samsung will stick to Galaxy, we have been thinking about whether we need to maintain the S moniker or the numbering system,” he said.
Enter Samsung Galaxy X
People familiar with the matter suggested that Samsung could launch the Galaxy S10, expected in early 2019, as Galaxy X, as part of new naming strategy which would undoubtedly lead to more criticism given the resemblance with the iPhone X.
In the meantime, however, Samsung is hard at work to make the Galaxy S9 a hit, pushing hard with trade-in campaigns across the world. The Samsung exec says he expects the S9 to sell better as a result of these promos, though again no estimates were offered.
“I can’t give you definite figures, but we believe they will fare better than the S8, especially on the back of our wide-ranging marketing campaigns, including the trade-in promotion with hefty cash-back offers for customers trading in previous models for the S9,” he said.
It remains to be seen if Samsung will indeed make the switch to the Galaxy X moniker for the next-generation flagship, but for the time being, the next big release on the company’s roadmap is the upgraded Note model expected in the summer.