Waiting for a Samsung Galaxy S26? You might have to wait even longer

The Samsung Galaxy S26 family of phones might not be available until March 2026 following the Galaxy Unpacked event in February. This will make the launch of these devices later than the last couple of generations, giving more time for rivals to establish sales of their own next-gen devices.

The Samsung Galaxy S24 was announced on 17 January 2024, while the Galaxy S25 was on 22 January, seeing Samsung pull forward the launch of its devices. Before that, Samsung typically launched its devices in February.

It looks like Samsung is returning to this previous launch window, with the suggestion that following the announcement, the devices might not actually be available to customers until March 2026. Typically, Samsung will open pre-orders on the day that the device is announced, but then it's a couple of weeks before it actually gets into the hands of customers.

These latest details come from established leaker UniverseIce on X (formerly Twitter), who raises the suggestion about the longer wait for Samsung fans waiting to get their hands on the new devices. With the likes of the OnePlus 15 already announced, Samsung's scheduling allows rivals a little longer to get their own devices into the hands of Android users.

We'd previously reported that Galaxy Unpacked may fall on 25 February 2026. With Samsung usually having two weeks between announcement and availability – and often choosing a Friday to start in-store sales, it could be that it's not available until Friday 13 March.

That's significantly later than Samsung's past few devices and the question is why? At the moment it's not clear why Samsung is rescheduling. It was assumed that Samsung moving everything forward was to be more competitive with flagship launches in China.

That's also seen companies like Qualcomm moving the launch of its Snapdragon hardware earlier in the year, while Google also shifted the launch of Android versions forward. Samsung now seems to be bucking this trend.

Samsung's plans also seem to have swung back and forth around the Galaxy S26 models. Firstly it was suggested that there would be no Galaxy S26 Plus, with that model getting replaced by the Galaxy S26 Edge. However, the skinny phone hasn't sold well and it's now questionable whether Samsung will follow-up with a new Edge device.

It was also thought that there would be some renaming of the normal Galaxy S26 to S26 Pro – to better match Apple – but that seems to have been reversed too. It's possible that the switch of focus from the Galaxy S26 Edge back to the Galaxy S26 Plus could be behind later launch date, or it might be that Samsung just thinks it's a better time to launch with fewer rivals vying for customer attention mid-February.

Time will tell – and we're sure to know much more about Samsung's plans soon.