Samsung Galaxy S24 series is likely to offer satellite communication support, according to details reportedly shared by a company executive. According to a Sisa Journal-E report (translated from Korean), Samsung Electronics System LSI Business Head Yong-In Park stated during a recent presentation that the South Korean tech conglomerate was preparing to offer support for satellite communication on its smartphones next year. With the Samsung Galaxy S24 series of smartphones expected to debut in Q1 2024, these handsets are likely to be the first to support the feature.
According to the report, the Samsung executive said that the company has already made preparations to support smartphone communications using a satellite. Yong-In Park, who made the announcement at the 2023 Semiconductor Expo, did not specify a timeline for the functionality to be enabled, or reveal which phones would support the feature.
It is worth noting that Apple announced support for non-terrestrial networks (NTN) communication via its Emergency SOS satellite feature with the iPhone 14 series of smartphones in 2022, and the company’s latest phones — including the iPhone 15 Pro Max — also support the feature. Earlier this year, Qualcomm announced Snapdragon Satellite support on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip, but the feature was not enabled on the Samsung Galaxy S23 series of smartphones.
On the other hand, Samsung’s own Exynos 5300 modem that features on its Exynos 2400 mobile processor as well as Google’s Tensor G2 (Pixel 7) and Tensor G3 (Pixel 8) chips, also supports NTN connectivity. Samsung is yet to reveal whether it will enable support for satellite communication on its Exynos 2400 chip — expected to power the Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24+ — or the recently unveiled Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip that is tipped to power the top-of-the-line Galaxy S23 Ultra handset.
It’s also unclear whether Samsung’s Galaxy S23 series of smartphones — comprising the Galaxy S23, Galaxy S23+, and Galaxy S23 Ultra — as well as the Galaxy Z Flip 5 and Galaxy Z Fold 5 will offer support for emergency satellite connectivity. TM Roh, president and head of Samsung’s mobile experience business division, previously stated that satellite functionality was still quite restricted on smartphones and that it was too soon to implement the feature on Samsung handsets.