Confirmed: Samsung won’t have press briefings at MWC

9to5 Staff | Feb 8 2012 - 11:53 am PT

Going the way of Microsoft and Apple, South Korean conglomerate Samsung confirmed in an email to PCMag it will not hold a news conference at Mobile World Congress (MWC). The world’s largest exhibition for the mobile industry, MWC traditionally serves as a launchpad for the very latest and greatest products the industry has up its sleeve. This year’s conference runs from Feb. 27 through March 1 in Barcelona, Spain. Samsung will still attend the show, they just will not have press briefings.

In a statement last week, Samsung said it was “looking forward to introducing and demonstrating exciting new mobile products at Mobile World Congress 2012.” The company decided to postpone the anticipated MWC launch of the Galaxy S III, opting to unveil the handset “at a separate Samsung-hosted event in the first half of the year, closer to commercial availability of the product.” The company also sent out invites for a press briefing on March 22 in France.

Hope still remains that the company will demonstrate an Ice Cream Sandwich tablet at MWC running its latest processor, the Exynos 5250, as well as other ICS devices and a rumored 11.6-inch Galaxy Tab tablet sporting an ultra high-resolution display. They should also share news on the Bada operating system and detail how it fits with Tizen; a new Linux-based operating system Samsung is co-developing with Intel. The South Korean giant will no doubt benefit by timing product launches separately of big trade shows, where most products get drowned in a flood of announcements. With Samsung’s extensive portfolio of consumer electronics products ranging from computers to tablets to smartphones, it makes sense to unveil them at the time and place of their choosing and not bow to someone else’s schedule—a strategy served Apple well. Although it never attended the Consumer Electronics Show 2012, Apple is on everyone’s lips due to iTV rumors. Back in January 2007, the iPhone introduction literally sent the CES machine to a standstill.