We’ve known for a while now that Samsung will launch the Galaxy S9 and S9+ at the Mobile World Congress 2018. To calm down speculations, Samsung even confirmed this at the CES 2018, but there was no mention of specific dates.
Thanks to Evan Blass, we now have what could be the specific launch date of the Galaxy S9 and S9+ and it’s no surprise at all. Apparently, the phones will be unveiled on February 26, which is the day the MWC 2018 event kicks off in Spain.
Usually, Samsung holds a press conference the day before the main event starts, but we cannot guarantee that this will be the case. On the brighter side, Blass has more than just the launch date. As it is, the Galaxy S9 and S9+ will be available for pre-order on the first day of March, with shipping expected to begin on March 16. Note that this could be limited to a few markets, among them North America and South Korea, but it could take weeks before the phones are available for purchase in all global markets.
According to a C-level executive at a major casemaker, the go-to-market schedule for Galaxy S9 / S9+ is as follows:
Launch – 2/26
Pre-orders – 3/1
Ships/releases – 3/16— Evan Blass (@evleaks) January 16, 2018
This is nearly identical to the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge. The two were launched at the MWC 2016 on February 21st and started shipping on March 11, 2016. But things were a bit different with the Galaxy S8 and S8+, where Samsung skipped the MWC 2017 tech show and launched the pair a month later.
The Galaxy S9 and S9+ are expected to borrow a lot from their predecessors, with the major changes taking place on the inside. These include a new Qualcomm Snapdragon 845/Exynos 9810 processor, a standard 6GB RAM on the S9+ (the S9 keeps the same 4GB RAM), a dual-lens camera on the S9+ and the latest Android 8.0 Oreo out of the box.
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