We had heard some rumours earlier that Samsung might announce their next Galaxy S-series phone in January 2018, ahead of the world’s largest mobile trade show in February. However, according to a report out of South Korea this afternoon, Samsung are looking to stamp their trademark back on MWC 2018, with plans to launch their flagship Galaxy S9 at the show in Barcelona.

There had been discussion about whether Samsung might go early to try and get the jump on Apple’s iPhone X, but that seems to be out the window. Unlike 2017, where Samsung barely showed at MWC, they’ll be back in style in February 2018, with their trademark Unpacked event to showcase the new Galaxy S9. This means, we hope, product on shelves a little sooner (instead of waiting until April).

Thinking realistically, there’s little point to announcing in January, as either (a) the actual product development might not be ready, or (b) there’ll be a longer gap between announcement and when people can buy one, which is never a good thing.

Analysis In all likelihood, then, we’ll see an Unpacked event on the night of Sunday 25 February 2018. Not long to wait! We’ve some reports that it might be as late as February 27th … but that would be mid-show, and no one announces anything that late in the piece; there’s a reason that the Sunday before MWC is called “press day”; it’s when most of the travelling press are actually around, and when announcements get the big attention. Occasionally there’ll be launches on the Monday morning, but only rarely. Samsung won’t miss the opportunity for a big press day reveal if they’re doing an MWC announcement.