Samsung to launch next flagship smartphone in Barcelona: report

PanARMENIAN.Net - Samsung Electronics will likely launch its next flagship smartphone at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the Wall Street Journal reports.

On Monday, Feb 3, the South Korean technology giant sent invitations for its “Samsung Unpacked” event. In previous years, the event was used for introducing its flagship Galaxy line of smartphones, one of the company’s most important marketing events for the year.Samsung’s profitability has hinged on how well its smartphones are taken up by consumers. The event is usually aired live through the web for the global audience.

Without going into details, Samsung said it will hold a global launch event of its new product on Feb 24. The e-mailed invitation letter included an attachment with the title “Unpacked 5,” with the number five inserted like a multiplier, suggesting Samsung is slated to showcase the successor to its popular Galaxy S4 smartphone. Samsung has been spending billions of dollars annually to market its vast line-up of products that range from mobile phones to tablets and refrigerators. The company, which spent about 13 trillion won in marketing in 2012, has yet to disclose how much it spent in 2013.

The company’s very first “unpacked” event was held in March 2010 in Las Vegas. It subsequently held launch events in Barcelona, London and New York. Samsung usually holds two events each year, naming them episode one and two, with the latter event saved for the second half of the year when it launches the successor to its Galaxy Note series, a crossover between a tablet and a smartphone.

Samsung has been tight lipped about its future product plans, the Journal says. But in November, Samsung published a patent in the U.S. for an iris-scanning technology, suggesting that the company may be considering the use of eye-recognition for people authentication in future devices. Local media reports have also said that Samsung’s next Galaxy smartphone may sport a higher resolution bigger screen and a faster processor.