Shipments of certain Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra colors will take longer to arrive

The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra release date is today, but new orders have been delivery dates pushed back to February 7 and in some cases February 14

If you want Samsung’s S24 Ultra in yellow, you better act mellow. You won’t get that popular color of the new phone until February 14, according to Samsung’s official site.

The release date for all seven of the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra colors is technically today, January 31, 2024, but as we’ve been reporting on all week, shipment dates have begun to slip into February. Six of the seven colors won’t arrive until February 7, and the Titanium Yellow color will arrive a week after that if ordered today.

Samsung phones never really sell out, and it’s not alone in this practice. As noted in our iPhone 15 Pro Max review, Apple saw a similar spike in demand for its largest smartphone late last year and the delivery dates kept getting pushed back. Similarly, iPhone 15 Pro colors were more popular than others. That’s what’s happening here.

What’s driving Samsung S24 Ultra demand?

As notes in our in-depth Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra review, this is the first AI-powered Android phone worth buying. So, not only does it have a 200MP camera, a 50MP 5x optical zoom and a 6.8-inch display with 2,600 nit peak brightness, it’s on-device and cloud-based machine-learning is novel for a smartphone. It’s also the first Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 phones available in the US, meaning it can execute AI tasks 98% faster than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip found in the S23 Ultra.

These cutting-edge features, combined with pre-order incentives, get early adopters to upgrade before the phone’s official release date. Why is Titanium Yellow so hard to get? It may not be the most popular S24 Ultra color. Our theory is Samsung just didn’t anticipate having supply of the odd color choice.

How to get Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra earlier

Apparently, customers agree that the S24 Ultra is worth it and sales data seen by The Shortcut makes us think that it’ll surpass the popularity of last year’s phone. In our Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra vs S23 Ultra comparison, we found that the design differences aren’t notable. It’s the AI inside that makes this year’s S24 Ultra worth upgrading – if you get a good trade-in deal.

To get the S24 Ultra earlier, you should check your Best Buy online to see if your local store has it for either shipment or local pick-up. Not only is demand down at Best Buy locations for this phone, but there’s a $150 Best buy gift card attached to the deal if you purchase (though this offer is expected to expire in a few days).

The only caveat if that the Samsung Store exclusive colors – Titanium Blue, Titanium Orange and Titanium Green – aren’t available outside of Samsung’s online channel. Best Buy does have Black, Gray, Violet and even Yellow readily available, though.