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[Digital Daily]

Samsung Electronics’ first round-dial smartwatch will be dubbed ‘Gear W,’ not ‘Gear A’ as had been known earlier. The company chose ‘W’ instead of ‘A’ to emphasize its rotating bezel ring UI (user interface). Unlike earlier expectations, the new smartwatch will not be unveiled at Samsung Unpacked 2015, which will take place in New York on August 13 (local time).

Samsung and other sources said on August 4 that the company is not likely to unveil the new smartwatch at the Unpacked event, where it will launch new smartphones. Samsung’s effort to keep the smartwatch under wraps stems from their concerns about distraction of attention that can be caused by releasing it together with new smartphones and their wish to narrow the gap between the unveiling and on-sale dates. The new smartwatch will be dubbed Gear W although many had expected that it would be Gear A.

A Samsung Electronics official said, “We have decided to unveil the Galaxy Note 5 and the Galaxy S6 Edge Plus at the upcoming Unpacked event but have not reached a conclusion on the Gear W because of possible changes in the on-sale schedule, which had been planned for the end of August.”
Another Samsung official said the smartwatch will be dubbed Gear W to highlight the feature that it is operated by rotating a round wheel.

Samsung planned to launch the sale of the Gear W throughout the world at the end of August but is not likely to meet the goal because of a delay in mass production. Hurried production can bring defects of products, which will inflict a bigger loss to the company. The Gear W will likely come into the global market in September when the current production schedule is considered. Another reason for Samsung’s reluctance for early unveiling is the concerns about copycats. Copying is widespread in the market even only when the concept of a new product is leaked. The elaborate UI and design that Samsung has developed with great efforts are feared to pale when copycat products appear in the market.

Samsung Electronics created the global smartwatch market in 2013. Shin Jong-kyun, head of the company’s IT and Mobile Communications, has repeatedly stressed that Samsung has been the pioneer in the market. The watches in the Gear Series are also expected to play an important role in diffusing the Tizen operating system (OS) that has been developed under the initiative of the company.

The global smartwatch market has greatly changed since the participation of Apple. The market has drastically grown in size. But most of the fruits were harvested by Apple. According to the market research firm Strategy Analytics (SA), the size of the smartwatch marekt grew to 5.3 million during the second quarter of this year, a growth of more than 4.5 times over the same period last year. Apple went straight to the top by selling 4 million devices. Samsung Electronics sold 0.4 million during the same period, which is only one-tenth of the sales volume of Apple. The Gear W has a lot on its shoulders. This is why Samsung is delaying its release.

Meanwhile, the Gear W has an AMOLED (Active Matrix OLED) display and features ‘Samsung Pay.’ It also adopts the wireless charging system that was introduced for the first time at the Galaxy S6. Some of the people who participated in the development of the wearable device said it was made to inherit the smart functions of the Gear Series while featuring excellent watch functions that can stand comparison with those of traditional watches.

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