Bad news if you were hoping for some smartphone news from LG and Huawei at Mobile World Congress this year, with whispers that Samsung s big Galaxy S9 reveal is making them cautious. The expectation – set up, it s worth remembering, from previous examples of high-profile smartphone debuts at the cellular-centric Barcelona show – had been that both companies would debut new flagships within the next few weeks. Now, though, that looks unlikely.
LG, for example, launched the LG V30 at Mobile World Congress last year, and the expectation had been that its successor would debut at this year s show. On Huawei s side, meanwhile, last year it announced the P10 in Barcelona. This time around, there were whispers that we d see the Huawei P20 at MWC.
Throwing all of its rivals plans into disarray, however, is Samsung. The Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9 Plus are expected to be unveiled at MWC 2018, and the fear, it seems, is that the new Android flagship will suck all the air out of the show.
According to ETNews, that s enough to dissuade LG and Huawei almost entirely. Huawei, for instance, is now said to be shelving plans to reveal the P20 there, and will instead hold its own event in April to give the smartphone its moment in the spotlight. At Mobile World Congress, it ll reportedly focus instead on tablets and 2-in-1 notebooks.
LG, meanwhile, will have a phone, but it won t be the V30 s direct successor. Instead, the suggestion is that there ll be an “enhanced” version of the existing phone. Expected to be the LG V30+, it ll have more marginal tweaks rather than being all-new.
