Dubai: Samsung is unveiling its much-awaited Galaxy S4 on Tuesday night at Armani Hotel.
Even though the smartphone looks identical to its predecessor — Galaxy S3 — it is the specifications that make a big difference.
Even the polycarbonate shell of S4 is same as S3 but the S4 is a 5-inch device with a pixel density of 441 compared to HTC One’s 468.
Three flagship smartphones are going to be launched this week, starting with S4, followed by HTC One and BlackBerry Q10.
According to industry experts, Samsung is expected to sell 10 million S4s in this quarter globally and the Korean company has shipped 80 million S4s to meet the global demand.
The S4 will be the first device to come out with an eight-core Exynos 5 Octa 5410 processor in the region while Samsung launched only quad-core processor in the US.
“Samsung has created a name in the market for premium handsets and S4 is rated as the highest,” said Hamza Saleem, senior research analyst at IDC.
He said Blackberry will lose its market share to Samsung this year.
Blackberry had a market share of 35 per cent in the UAE last year while Samsung had a market share of 30 per cent.
“We are getting lot of dealer bookings for S4, much before the launch. We are not sure how much units we will be getting for the launch,” said Deepak Babani, CEO at Eros Group, sole distributor for Samsung phones in the UAE.
He admitted than Eros most likely will get only one-third of what ordered, but the shipments will come weekly.
Only 16GB/3G will be available from Saturday and it is priced at Dh2,599.
Babani sees no competition to come from HTC and Q10 for S4. Galaxy S4’s new software and hardware features are enough for S4 to take the crown.
