Samsung withdraws from top business lobby following corruption scandal

Samsung Electronics announced today that it has withdrawn its membership from the top business lobby of South Korea after the Federation of Korean Industries was also blamed for its role in the country’s corruption scandal that has resulted in the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye. Samsung has submitted a formal document of withdrawal to the federation and other affiliates of the Samsung Group are expected to do the same very soon.

This wasn’t an expected move because the Samsung heir Lee Jae-yong did tell the country’s lawmakers during a parliamentary hearing in December last year that the conglomerate would leave the Federation of Korean Industries. Other companies like LG Group and KT Corp. have already announced their withdrawal from the FKI which includes about 600 member companies.

Samsung remains under investigation in the corruption scandal as the company is claimed to have paid more than $35 million through a close personal friend of the president to win influence. The Samsung heir recently dodged arrest in this case but he or his company is not out of the woods just yet.

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South Korea reaches similar conclusion, says battery to blame for Note 7 fires

The South Korean government also launched an investigation into the Galaxy Note 7 fires after Samsung discontinued the handset last year and said that it would conduct a thorough investigation into the matter. Samsung released the report of its Galaxy Note 7 investigation a couple of weeks back and explained that the battery was the culprit. The state-run Korean Agency for Technology and Standards has reached the same conclusion.

The country’s Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said in a press release today that the tests revealed that some electrodes of batteries installed in the Galaxy Note 7 were damaged while some batteries didn’t have proper insulation materials. The ministry did mention that no problems in the Galaxy Note 7′s hardware design or software were discovered.

“As the pace of smartphone development has been rapid for years, the capacity of batteries has been expanded as well,” said Kim Jeong-hoi, director general of the product safety policy bureau at the ministry, adding that companies “should have focused more on safety issues in their manufacturing process.”

The South Korean government has said that it’s now going to tighten safety guidelines on lithium-ion batteries and smartphones to ensure that the chances of something like this happening again remain slim.

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Galaxy S8 Plus expected to outperform the Galaxy S8 this year

When it launched the Galaxy S6 and the Galaxy S6 edge back in 2015, Samsung made a miscalculation. It thought that since the Galaxy S6 edge was more expensive than the Galaxy S6, customers were going to prefer the latter more. That didn’t turn out to be the case. It became evident soon after launch that customers preferred the more expensive but arguably more stylish Galaxy S6 edge with its dual-edge curved display. Samsung missed out on a lot of potential sales because it just didn’t have enough supply of the Galaxy S6 edge to meet demand.

The company knew what it had to do the following year. It produced more units of the Galaxy S7 edge than the Galaxy S7 and the results speak for themselves. According to several estimates, almost 70 percent of all Galaxy S7 sales are accounted for by the dual-edge curved variant. As Samsung gears up to launch its next-generation flagship smartphone in about a month or so, many expect the Galaxy S8 Plus to outperform the Galaxy S8.

However, it’s not going to be that simple this year because both the Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy S8 Plus are going to feature a dual-edge curved display. Their size is what will set them apart. The Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus are believed to feature a 5.7-inch and 6.2-inch display respectively. Samsung is reportedly placing its bets on the Galaxy S8 Plus to be the clear winner but since both models are likely to have similar specs, it will be consumer preference that decides which variant takes the cake.

An industry official cited in a recent report claims that Samsung has set the production rate in favor of the Galaxy S8 Plus, it’s prioritizing production of the larger model because it believes that consumers will opt for it in far greater numbers than the smaller Galaxy S8.

The cost will obviously be a factor as well. Will customers be willing to pay at least $100 more for a device that just has a bigger display when you can get the exact same look and feel at a lower cost? Moreover, it’s not like 5.7-inch is a small display by any means, that’s what the Galaxy Note 7 was touting last year so the Galaxy S8 will firmly be inside phablet territory anyway.

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Galaxy C5 Pro may arrive in markets outside China

We first reported exclusively in September last year that Samsung had the Galaxy C5 Pro in the pipeline. There have been a lot of rumors and reports about this handset ever since. Samsung may only launch it in China initially but we’ve now spotted something that suggests the company might launch the Galaxy C5 Pro in markets outside the People’s Republic.

The Galaxy C5 Pro model number SM-C5010 was first spotted at the Wi-Fi Alliance in late December, this was the China-specific variant of the Galaxy C5 Pro. We’ve now spotted the same handset with model number SM-C501X at the Wi-Fi Alliance. While it doesn’t confirm anything right now, it’s a big indication that there’s a possibility that Samsung might launch this handset in markets outside China at some point in the future.

According to previous reports, the Galaxy C5 Pro may feature a 5.2/5.5-inch Full HD display with a Snapdragon 625 processor under the hood coupled with 6GB of RAM, 64GB storage, a 16-megapixel front and rear camera aside from Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow.

Samsung is yet to even hint when it’s going to make the Galaxy C5 Pro official.

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Official Galaxy S8 cases possibly leaked

We still have to wait for about a month or so before Samsung will officially unveil the Galaxy S8. A purported live picture of the handset was leaked recently and it may have provided us our first proper look at the upcoming flagship. We saw in that leaked picture that Samsung had ditched the home button and repositioned the fingerprint sensor on the back alongside the camera. Images of what are claimed to be the official Galaxy S8 cases have appeared online today and they suggest the same thing.

Samsung is expected to offer the 5.7-inch Galaxy S8 and 6.2-inch Galaxy S8 Plus this year. We can see cases for both models are more or less the same with the only noticeable difference being that of the dimensions. That’s because both models are said to feature dual-edge curved displays so the design itself will be very similar.

The cut out on the back appears to be big enough for the rear camera and the flash on both models. You’ll see that the cut out for the fingerprint sensor is right beside it and it’s unclear if it’s big enough to allow proper recognition of the finger.

Be that as it may, nothing is confirmed officially at this point in time so take this with a grain of salt. It’s common for many fake “leaks” to surface prior to the launch of a flagship smartphone so we have to be careful with what we believe right now.

Samsung is expected to unveil the Galaxy S8 at a special event next month but it might show off a one-minute teaser of the new flagship later this month at the Mobile World Congress 2017 in Barcelona.

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