It seems almost certain that the Samsung Galaxy S21 (previously known as the Galaxy S30) is going to make its debut in January – but if you needed any more convincing then there's yet another piece of evidence to add to the pile.
As spotted by SamMobile, the phone has just passed through the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) certification process. It's a standard procedure, but it's happened a full month before it normally does.
That fits with Samsung shifting the launch window from February – which is when the Galaxy S20 launched – to earlier in the year. 2021 will probably only be a few days old when the next Galaxy S series flagship appears.
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One rumor has named the actual date of the Samsung Galaxy S21 announcement as January 14, so mark your calendars or diaries accordingly. Preorders will apparently open then, with the phone going on sale and shipping on January 29.
The earlier the better
Samsung has released its Galaxy S phones in February for the last three years, along the way uncoupling the announcement from the Mobile World Congress (MWC) expo where it used to unveil the handsets.
Before that the handsets used to arrive in March, so you can see how the launch window has shifted further and further towards the start of the year – and you can't get much earlier in the year than the first two weeks of January.
The reason behind the switch seems to be the obvious one: Samsung wants to get a head start on its rivals in the new year, and is aiming to grab some market share away from Huawei and Apple over the next 12 months.
We've seen plenty of other leaks around the new phone as well. We're expecting a 6.2-inch Galaxy S21, a 6.7-inch Galaxy S21 Plus, and a 6.8-inch Galaxy S21 Ultra to be the three models that get unveiled when January rolls around.
