Samsung Gear S3 smartwatch might hit market in November

Samsung is planning for a market rollout of the Gear S3 smartwatch – which was unveiled at the August media event in Berlin – in November, according to a latest report. The move is expected to help the company recover from the Galaxy Note 7 debacle.

The price of the wearable would be disclosed when release is fixed. The two variants of Gear S3 – Classic and Frontier – would have different price tags, but the devices are likely to be around 400,000 won (£289, $356).

"We decided to market the Gear S3 midway through November at the latest in Korea and some other countries," a Samsung official told the Korean Times adding, "In China, the timepiece will be launched later."

The smartwatch is likely will make its debut in US, South Korea and major markets in Europe.

The Gear S3 is one of the most anticipated devices of the year because of its features. It has a circular 1.3in touch screen, built-in GPS and NFC chip for contactless payments. It can run up to four days, and comes with health tracking features. Users can also access as many as 10,000 apps.

"We are confident that the Gear S3 will be one of the most loved smartwatches for users, as we focused on bringing cutting-edge technologies and emotional designs to it," the official said.

Gear S3 would face a direct competition from Apple Watch 2 series, which was launched in September and went on sale on 16<sup>th of same month.

According to research firm IDC, Apple accounted for 47% of global smartwatch market in the second quarter of this year, whereas Samsung was at 16%. The gap was reasonably bigger last year during the same period when Apple occupied 72% of the market, whereas Samsung had 7%.

"Consumers have held off on smartwatch purchases since early 2016 in anticipation of a hardware refresh, and improvements in WatchOS are not expected until later this year, effectively stalling existing Apple Watch sales," said Jitesh Ubrani, senior research analyst for IDC Mobile Device Trackers.