14 DAY TRIAL // Samsung has always liked to play with different ideas and technologies, but most of the prototypes the company creates don't make it to the market. The one truly innovative phone launched by Samsung, the Galaxy Round, was launched three years ago as a concept phone.
The Galaxy Round was one of the first smartphones to sport a flexible display. Around the same time LG released a similar handset called the G Flex, which had a slightly larger flexible display.
However, of the two companies that launched smartphones with flexible displays back in 2013, just LG had the courage to make the G Flex available worldwide.
Samsung stated at that time that the Galaxy Round was a concept phone meant to test the market, so it only made sense for them to sell in their home turf (South Korea).
But now it looks like both companies are readying a new wave of innovative products. Since Samsung and LG dominate the market for smartphone displays, three years were enough to make some technological breakthroughs that would enable the launch of completely different devices.
Foldable smartphones could be a breath of fresh air on a saturated market
A new report coming from The Investor cites Kim Don-won, an analyst at Hyundai Securities, as saying that Samsung and LG plan to launch foldable smartphones in 2017.
“The year 2017 will be the first year of foldable smartphones for the mass market. Following the launches by the Korean firms, other global rivals such as Apple and Google are also likely to unveil their own versions in 2018,” claims Kim Dong-won.
According to the analyst, the launch of foldable handsets is meant to offer these companies some leverage on a saturated smartphone market. Both Samsung and LG display divisions are likely to start producing sixth-generation flexible organic light-emitting diode panels, the analyst explained in his report.
The new report comes in line with a previous statement coming from Samsung's mobile chief Koh Dong-jin, who said his company was already working on a foldable smartphone that is supposed to be mass-produced if testing proves it's worth it.
