It's now February and the Samsung Galaxy Note 5 has still not reached Europe.
The handset was previously rumored and then confirmed to arrive in Europe in late January 2016. However, it seems like Samsung has changed plans and decided to skip the handset's European launch this year and even in the years ahead.
Back in December, we reported on how the launch of the Galaxy Note 5 and the Galaxy S6 edge+ had differed in the region. While the latter was launched in Europe soon after it had its debut, the Galaxy Note 5's launch was held back. Samsung had even performed heavy marketing on both handsets in other regions.
During that period, there was no information on why Samsung held back the Galaxy Note 5 release in Europe.
However, the Note 5's European launch was confirmed by a reliable Samsung source, according to Gadgette. The report claimed that the Note 5 would finally make it to Europe in late January 2016.
Then again, the controversial Galaxy Note 5 is still a no-show in Europe. This time however, Samsung has an explanation.
In an interview with TechRadar, Rory O'Neill, Samsung's European VP of Brand and Marketing, said that it was all about the Note 5's design purpose. The Galaxy Note 5 is aimed at productivity as opposed to entertainment, something that most customers in Europe value more in their devices.
"If you look at the large screen form factor in Europe it's fundamentally different as in the U.S. and it's fundamentally different to China," said O'Neill. "We studied that the user patterns for large-screen devices in Europe were much more entertainment-centric, viewing-centric, than while the Note proposition is really good, is more on the productivity side and personal organization side."
It is said that mobile users in Europe don't really intend to use their devices for work. The main reason for choosing a large-screen display in a handset is all about media consumption.
A new rumor says that Samsung plans to do the exact opposite in 2016. Since the Galaxy Note 5 may never launch in Europe, the company will instead launch the Galaxy Note 6 in the U.K.
Meanwhile, although the Galaxy S6 edge+ managed to reach European shores, the upcoming Galaxy S7 edge+ will not follow in its footsteps and will be landing instead in other regions.
Once again, Samsung is yet to make an official announcement on all of these future launches. For now, there can only be speculations on why the company is doing a "reverse launch" in 2016.
One of these speculations is the sales performance of the Galaxy S6 edge+, which didn't yield impressive results. If the Note 5 had indeed made it to Europe, it could have achieved a better sales record than the S6 edge+.
Samsung is expected to officially announce the Galaxy S7 and the Galaxy S7 edge at the MWC 2016 event later this month.
