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Samsung’s recent press release for their Q1 2017 earnings has the company gushing about all sorts of good company vibes such as expectations of increased profit, robust Galaxy S8 sales, and overall strong performance forecasts despite hitting what the company would call “weak seasonality,” otherwise known as that time after Christmas where no one wants to spend any more money.
Anyway, tucked beneath all that corporate talk was a line that sparked our interest a bit:
The company will aim to improve performance YoY by maximizing sales of the Galaxy S8 and S8+ and successfully launching a new flagship smartphone in the second half.
That line is tactically vague, but anyone with even an inkling of a beat on the smartphone scene should know that they’re probably referring to the Samsung Galaxy Note 8.
Typically we’d assume that one of Samsung’s biggest flagships will have annual launches, but as you know, the Galaxy Note 7’s demise threatened that status quo, especially when rumors that Samsung might look to offer S-Pens with the Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus were swirling about. That didn’t happen, so there’s still a gap in that “ultra productive” market segment that Samsung almost solely owns.
Of course, they could surprise us with something entirely unexpected, but unless their flexible smartphone is ready for primetime — which they’ve already come out and admitted it isn’t — then it should be the Galaxy Note 8.
There should be no big mystery as to what’s coming, either, as the Galaxy Note lineup these days tends to keep things close to the Galaxy S8 in terms of design and functionality, albeit with an S-Pen and maybe 1 or 2 new tricks that the early-year siblings were too early to enjoy. We have months to figure it out, of course, so we won’t fret too much on trying to figure out what’s to come.
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