Reports out of South Korea earlier this week suggested that Samsung is preparing for 2016 smartphone shipments that sink by about 12% compared to 2015. If this new leak is accurate, it’s fairly easy to see why Samsung is prepping for a decline in sales. While Apple managed to increase its September-quarter shipments when launching an “S” upgrade this year, which looks exactly like last year’s iPhone but includes internal component upgrades, Samsung may not be able to pull off the same feat — it appears as though next year’s Galaxy S7 may feature the exact same design as 2015’s Galaxy S6.
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A seller on online electronics wholesale website DHGate.com has listed what it claims to be cases designed for Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy S7, which is expected to be unveiled in the first quarter of 2016. The images alongside the listing show a rugged “Armor Defender” case that isn’t really anything special. Inside the case, however, are images of a smartphone that may be Samsung’s unreleased Galaxy S7.
Case makers often get their hands on early schematics and other smartphone imagery long before handsets are announced so that they can design their cases ahead of time and have them ready when popular new phones launch. That said, these particular images are not confirmed to be authentic — and since they show a phone with no notable design changes at all compared to this year’s model, we can only hope they’re not genuine.
A few of the images from the Galaxy S7 case listing follow below.
