UPDATE: Samsung has officially confirmed the Galaxy S10 launch on 20 February
Original story continues below...
The trio of Samsung Galaxy S10 phones – the Samsung S10, S10 Plus and S10 Lite – are scheduled for an official launch at an event in San Francisco a week ahead of MWC 2019, which kicks off in Barcelona on Monday 25 February.
That surprising piece of news comes via Korean news site The Korea Herald. It's surprising because the assumption up until now was that the S10 would be announced at a Samsung Galaxy Unpacked event at MWC on Sunday 24 February, just as the S9 was launched at MWC 2018 on Sunday 25 February.
- Samsung Galaxy X will also launch on 20 February
- Samsung Galaxy X: everything you need to know about the foldable smartphone
Going a step further and adding a specific launch date, reliable leaker Iceuniverse waded in on Twitter this morning to say that the Samsung Galaxy S10 official launch will take place on Wednesday 20 February, space year 2019.
The Next Galaxy, February 20, San Francisco.😘January 10, 2019
The Korea Herald says that there was an internal discussion at Samsung about changing the date and location of the Unpacked event to mark the 10th anniversary of the Galaxy phone and that the decision to move the Galaxy S10 launch forward was taken, in part, to get the jump on a possible announcement of Huawei's folding phone at MWC.
Even if Huawei doesn't announce its folding phone at MWC, it's almost certain that the Chinese manufacture will have something special to unveil. Perhaps the company's first 5G handset or the successor to the P20 Pro, the P30 Pro. We're also expecting MWC to see a new flagship phone from Sony unveiled: the Sony Xperia XZ4. Nokia, Honor, Oppo, Xiaomi, OnePlus and HTC are all likely to have large presences, too.
So it makes sense that Samsung would want to give the S10 launch a bit of breathing space. Also, that earlier launch date might explain why EE is already promoting the "the new Samsung Galaxy".
The same report also adds, citing a "a high-ranking Samsung official", that the release date for Samsung's folding smartphone – the Samsung Galaxy X or Galaxy Fold – hasn’t been confirmed. The phone was, however, reportedly recently shown to a select few attendees at CES.
UPDATE: Samsung has officially confirmed the Galaxy S10 launch on 20 February and the Samsung Galaxy X folding phone will also launch on 20 February
