If you expect the next line of smartphones Galaxy S of Samsung followed normal course number and call it “S11”, a rumor that has been circulating the Internet can put this into question. And all because of a single tweet from South Korea’s notorious secret leaker, the infamous “@IceUniverse”.
According to the profile, “next year is 2020, and ’20’ is a new beginning.” The publication was made in response to a previous tweet from the same account, which stated that Samsung would skip the “11” smartphone nomenclature. Without necessarily elaborating on the “new beginning” of the “20” in the tweet, speculation already suggests that Samsung may call the next family of flagships “Galaxy S20” or something similar.
Next year is 2020, and 20 is a new beginning.
— Ice universe (@UniverseIce) December 24, 2019
According to Engadget, which first published the news, the main reason for the name of the handsets to follow the year they will be released would be commercial: by positioning them as “S20”, Samsung would facilitate naming with more casual smartphone consumers, creating a simpler identification of which of your devices is the largest and most requested in a broad portfolio.
The second reason would be to position itself ahead of rival Apple in terms of model names released: in 2019, Samsung put the Galaxy S10 on the market just to see Cupertino’s company launch the iPhone 11. It sounds like little, but this kind of allusion carries a weight of interest to the public: “the highest number is the most advanced model” is a very constant idea in the minds of many users.
Moreover, Samsung would not be the first to adopt such a measure: Huawei went from P10 to P20 in 2018 and adopted a nomenclature that would always increase the number by 10 houses: in 2019, the Chinese launched the P30 and hopefully by March 2020, the P40 will be with us.
Despite the relatively solid reasons, it is good to be left behind with this kind of rumor: there is no move from Samsung to justify this thought and all you see now is nothing more than speculation. Also, despite @IceUniverse’s good history of confirmed leaks, it’s worth noting that the same profile on Twitter referred to the next generation of South Korean smartphones as “S11e”, “S11” and “S11 +”.
The new “Galaxy-whatever-its-name” is due to be announced between February and March 2020.
Source: Ice Universe (via Twitter); Engadget