Report: Samsung Galaxy S5 to launch in mid-March at a London event

Samsung has announced that it will be releasing a Galaxy S5 smartphone around April. It will also unveil a second generation Gear smartwatch, which will have improved features and design.

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Lee Young Hee, executive vice president for the mobile sector of the business told Bloomberg in an interview: “We’ve been announcing our first flagship model in the first half of each year, around March and April, and we are still targeting for release around that time,” Lee said. “When we release our S5 device, you can also expect a Gear successor with more advanced functions, and the bulky design will also be improved.”
Apparently Samsung is also exploring the possibilities of using eye scanner technology for the first time in its devices, in a bid to compete with its rival, Apple.
Currently one in every three smartphones sold globally is a Samsung branded handset. To keep up with the competition, Samsung is adding new features and models to its family of devices. The new S5 and wearable device will debut at the same time because this boosts sales of tablets too.
Lee Young Hee has also said that the company will announce at least one other wearable device this year but didn’t give any further information on what it would be or when specifically.
As for the S5, Samsung are keeping pretty tight lipped on specific features. “Many people are fanatical about iris recognition technology,” Lee said at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. “We are studying the possibility but can’t really say whether we will have it or not on the S5.”
When Apple released the iPhone 5S and 5C back in September, sales of the Galaxy S4 slowed down. Lee thinks that consumers may have been a little disappointed with the S4 because it hadn’t changed much from its predecessor, the S3.
“When we moved to S4 from S3, it’s partly true that consumers couldn’t really feel much difference between the two products from the physical perspective, so the market reaction wasn’t as big,” she said. “For the S5, we will go back to the basics. Mostly, it’s about the display and the feel of the cover.”
Analysts think this is going to be a difficult year for Samsung, especially when it comes keeping pace with rivals.
“The release of the S5 will be very important to Samsung,” Lee Seung Woo, an analyst at IBK Securities Co., said. “Competition is going to intensify, and it’s not going to be an easy year for the company.”
Image:technoterminal
Source: bloomberg

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