Samsung Galaxy S5 Release Date Coming: Fire At Company’s Partner Factory Raises Concerns About Galaxy S5 Availability

With exactly one month left for the worldwide release of the new Samsung (KRX:005935) Galaxy S5 smartphone, a huge fire at a factory manufacturing printed circuit boards, or PCBs, for the new flagship handset has raised concerns about the device's availability.

According to a report from Asia News Agency, the fire started in a factory in Anseong, South Korea, at about 7:00 a.m. local time on Sunday, and blazed for six hours before nearly 300 firefighters could extinguish it. The damage from the fire is estimated to be about $1 billion.

Samsung said in a statement that the Anseong factory is not the only facility the company has employed to produce PCBs for the Galaxy S5 and that the incident is not likely to affect the April 11 launch of the device by a huge margin.

However, as reported by GSMArena, the Galaxy S5’s release could still suffer due to the incident, and some markets could find the smartphone in short supply at launch.

Meanwhile, Samsung released the first official hands-on videos of the Galaxy S5 and the two wearable devices -- Galaxy Gear 2 and Galaxy Gear Fit -- on Monday. The videos showcased the main highlights of the devices in terms of both hardware and software. Check out the official videos from Samsung here: