Corroborating with early reports that Samsung intends to launch the Galaxy Z Flip5 and Fold5 by late July, an official that’s familiar with the matter revealed to Chosun that the official launch for Samsung’s latest foldables is on July 26.

“The promotion of the smartphone sector is more necessary than ever to support the company’s performance due to the sluggish memory semiconductor industry. If the release and launch of the foldable phone are two weeks earlier, it will have the effect of improving the performance in the third quarter,” Chosun’s resource person said.

Pushing the launch date for the Galaxy Z Fold5 and Flip5 earlier by two weeks would mean not just a better 3rd quarter performance, but also being ahead of Apple as they are expected to unveil the iPhone 15 series in September. Aside from the earlier date, Samsung is set to change the venue of the next Galaxy Unpacked to Seoul, South Korea instead of New York or San Francisco.

While it’s initially speculated to happen in Busan to coincide with promoting the Busan Expo, though it’s also possible that it might happen in Seoul instead for “global awareness and event effect”.

“As Galaxy Z Flip and Fold is a trend-leading product, there was a discussion to open it alternately in global cultural cities. Following last year’s New York, we are considering a plan to hold it in Seoul this year and hold it in major cities around the world such as Paris, France and Tokyo, Japan,” an official familiar with the issue said.

The Galaxy Z Flip5 is expected to have a significantly larger outer display to compete better with the Find N2 Flip and X Flip.