Warning: There might be two possible interpretations of this post, either Samsung is a company full of strategic masterminds, hell bent on sabotaging their competition and capturing the mobile market; or I am stark raving mad.

While going through the latest leaks regarding the expected top-end Android devices to be launched at this year’s Mobile World Congress, I was overwhelmed with conflicting emotions. Both HTC’s One X and LG’s Optimus 4X HD seemed like stellar devices, with huge high-def screens, blazing quad-core processors, amazing cameras - in short, the whole shebang! But, one thought kept gnawing at me the whole time. No consumer would ever consider buying these devices before seeing what Samsung had in its arsenal!

Suddenly, Samsung’s whole master plan unravelled right in front of me. They are going to let their competitors do their thing at MWC and let them be happy releasing their shiny new quad-core devices in peace. The whole tech-journalism community would be alight with praises about how mind-blowing HTC’s One X is or how blazingly fast the 4X HD is, but as soon as their honeymoon period ends, BAM! Here comes the SGS III and takes away all the press and consumer attention right from under their noses! No phone, save the iPhone 5 is as insanely anticipated as the successor to the wildly popular SGS II and you could expect excessive fanfare to follow its release.

Samsung Galaxy S III (Mock Up)

See, the point is that if Samsung had launched the SGS III at MWC, no matter how good, it would still be considered a competitor to the One X and 4X HD. Every tech site would have posts like “Android Showdown: SGS III vs One X vs 4X HD”. It would become one of the many of quad-core smartphones released at MWC. That is not what Samsung wants. What they want is to make it rise above the competition. By launching the SGS III a few weeks later, they ensure that tech sites would be rife with posts like “The Galaxy S III is the best smartphone ever made. PERIOD.”

Samsung knows that even though HTC and LG might announce their devices now, it will still take them months to come to market. They will just wait for the MWC buzz to die down, and as soon as it does, not only will they announce the SGS III, but they’ll pull a page out of Apple’s book and release the device within a week! So basically, even though it would be announced after its rivals, the SGS III will be available on the market before them, completely decimating the competition. Let’s face facts; no consumer would skip out on buying the Samsung Galaxy S III to wait for an HTC One X or an LG Optimus 4X HD. Even if it is a minutely inferior device, its brand recognition, market buzz and market availability would propel it forward by leaps and bounds.

Stylish all over

I reiterate, I might be completely insane and Samsung might just be waiting to finish up the device and make sure it’s awesome enough. But the fact that Samsung already plans to introduce Ice Cream Sandwich devices like the Galaxy Tab 2 and other quad core devices like the rumoured Galaxy Note 10.1, makes me pause for thought. If both the software and hardware components are ready, then why are they delaying it? Shouldn’t the successor to the most popular device they’ve ever had be a much higher priority than those of less successful devices? One can only wonder, but if what I think is true, then Samsung is one clever company indeed. Check mate, HTC and LG, check mate!

You can connect with Harshit Passi on Twitter @hrshtpassi