Continuing their streak of constantly adding to the Galaxy S4 brand, Samsung Electronics has announced plans to sell a variation of its flagship smartphone that can transmit data at almost twice the normal speed of its current incarnation.
The company will begin sales of this new version of the Galaxy S4 in South Korea sometime this month. The new features are only made available through the use of LTE-Advanced 4G technology. LTE-Advanced is an evolution on the normal 4G LTE network that can transmit data at twice the speed. Qualcomm chips will power the upgraded phones.
The company claims a movie download, which once took three minutes with conventional 4G will now only take a little more than a minute with 4G LTE-Advanced.
At the company's press event, J.K. Shin, co-chief executive of Samsung, spoke to Reuters about the viability of the new phone in light of the current Galaxy S4's sales, which have included selling more than 10 million units in the past month.
"S4 sales remain strong. Its selling far stronger than the (Galaxy) S III ... and the new LTE-Advanced (4G) phone will be another addition to our high-end segment offerings that ensure healthy profit margins," Shin said.
Although Shin had fine things to say about the new phone on behalf of the company, he was not willing to talks specifics on price. The only information he was willing to give was the fact that the new phone will cost slightly more expensive than the current Galaxy S4.
"As operators seek to provide more data-centric mobile services, I think this will become mainstream 4G technology globally in the coming years," Shin said.
Reuters also reports Samsung was in talks with several overseas carriers to market the new phone. When asked, Shin would neither comment nor give any details as to which carriers the company had reached out to.
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