We have previously heard that Samsung plans to move up the launch of its flagship Galaxy S24 smartphone by one month, to January 2024. But now, a report from Korean site SBS Biz has revealed more details about Samsung's plans: on Wednesday, January 17.

Based on past years, if Samsung keeps the Friday launch date, the phone itself will be available for purchase two weeks later, on February 2.

Last year, the Galaxy S23 family made its debut at the February 1 event, but Samsung is apparently moving it up two weeks. According to the site, the event will again be held in San Francisco, and will emphasize the U.S. as "Apple's home market," with the aim of "keeping the iPhone 15 series in check" and making up for "weak" semiconductor sales.

The January 17 date is the earliest point in time that Samsung could have come up with common sense. Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset, after all, is not yet available in devices that can be purchased.

The first will be the Xiaomi 14, likely in December, but going over the saturated Christmas period is risky and will likely water down sales of Samsung's older devices; in January, CES will be held from the 9th to the 12th, and Samsung may be overshadowed.

Therefore, the 17th would be the earliest Samsung could get the device, perhaps not dramatically earlier than when the S23 was first unveiled, but somewhat ahead of the 2017 Galaxy S8, which was announced on March 29 and did not go on sale until April 21.

Samsung will have to wait for Qualcomm to plan its next device, but that doesn't necessarily mean your phone will feature the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset; as The Elec reported, Qualcomm has "most market share " only, suggesting that Samsung will continue to use Exynos in other regions.

One way around this? If you buy a Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, it will likely have the Snapdragon chipset no matter where you buy it. Perhaps this is because the phone's future camera performance requires AI smarts.