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Samsung might launch Galaxy S26 in January instead of March: Report

Rumour had it that Samsung may postpone the Galaxy S26 series launch to March, but a new report says that the upcoming flagship phones will be coming in the second half of January.

The Galaxy S26 and the Galaxy S26 Plus may be powered by Exynos 2600 chipset. (Image Source: Samsung)

Earlier this month, rumour had it that Samsung might launch the Galaxy S26 series sometime in March 2026 due to changes in the product lineup. But now, a new machine translated report by the Korean publication Chosun suggests the company might prepone the launch of the Galaxy S26 series and unveil it in the second half of January.

In a statement to the publication, a Samsung Electronics official told the publication that “the release was almost delayed due to the longer hardware verification period by removing the edge and adding a plus model, but this problem has been resolved and the release is now possible in February next year.”

The report goes on to claim that the delay was not because Samsung faced challenges concerning the upcoming Exynos 2600 chipset. It goes on to say that the in-house chipset – Exynos 2600 will only be coming to the base and plus model while the Galaxy S26 Ultra will be powered by Qualcomm’s newest Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5.

Because of the increased price of the chipset, ongoing tariff war and increase in component price, we may see Samsung bumping up the price of the Galaxy S26 Ultra by a significant amount. Samsung recently said that the price of mobile chipsets has increased by around 12 per cent while camera modules have gotten around 8 per cent more expensive.

To give you a quick recap, the Exynos 2600 chipset is based on Samsung foundry’s 2nm process. Apart from the chipset upgrade, Samsung is also reportedly making the Galaxy S26 more curvier than its predecessor and packing in a redesigned camera island with three lenses placed in a vertical pill shaped module.