Samsung Galaxy Note 9 will be released later this year, mobile chief DJ Koh confirmed during an interview at Mobile World Congress.
DJ Koh was speaking during a press conference after the Galaxy S9 launch event in Barcelona.
The Samsung mobile boss confirmed plans to launch a new entry in the best-selling Galaxy Note series later this year.
DJ Koh also hinted one of the headline features of the new handset would be a second-generation of Samsung’s in-house smart assistant, Bixby.
The executive told ZDnet: “For Bixby 1.0, we focused on a fast rollout to the market.
“Expanding the ecosystem was difficult. So Bixby 2.0 will strengthen this aspect and we are working intensely.
“In December last year, we began taking applications for the public beta version.
“So far over 800 companies have applied and are testing it.
“At this speed, I think we will be able to unveil Bixby 2.0 when we launch the Galaxy Note 9.”
Current predictions place the Galaxy Note 9 release date in August – a few weeks ahead of Apple’s annual iPhone launch event in September.
Samsung is widely-tipped to be working on a Bixby-powered smart speaker to launch later in the year.
“Bixby won’t be tied to a specific device. The ultimate goal is to make it ubiquitous,” DJ Koh added.
“Samsung is unique in that it has TVs, refrigerators, washing machines, phones, PCs, and almost every consumer electronics.
“We also make the module chips that goes in them needed in IoT. AI speaker will also be one among them.”
Samsung is believed to be working on voice match functionality for Bixby – like Google Assistant.
Samsung purportedly wants individuals to train the AI assistant to identify their individual timbre, so Bixby can give personalised answers.