Samsung Foldable Phone Mass Production to Start This Year; Display May Fold Two-Third: Report

Samsung appears all set to launch the Galaxy X, the smartphone with a foldable display. Samsung's plans to launch a foldable smartphone have been rumoured for years, and the company confirmed it had plans to launch it in 2018. While the tech world has been anticipating a foldable smartphone from Samsung for a long time, the South Korean giant is now said to be ready for the mass production of foldable OLED panels. While a new report out of South Korea claims to reveal the plans by Samsung Display, it does not indicate the exact device where the OLED panels will be used. However, rumours mills suggest that they could be used in the upcoming Galaxy X, said to get launched next year.

As per an ETNews report, sources have claimed that Samsung Display is finally gearing up for mass production of foldable OLED displays, with the aim to supply the folding phone next year. Of course, these display panels will differ from the ones seen in the likes of Galaxy S9 and iPhone X. They will actually be bendable, making it possible for users to fold a smartphone. While the alleged Samsung Galaxy X is expected to be launch in 2019, and mass-production of the foldable displays will kick off in time for that, the report says.

Samsung is said to begin trial production of its foldable OLED panels for the Galaxy X this summer. The latest report also claims that the folding mechanism for the Galaxy X is yet to be locked down. According to most of the patent seen previously, the new smartphone is seen to be folding in half. However, in such an instance, users will have to unfold the device for even smaller work such as checking the time. Hence, it has been claimed that the Galaxy X display may only fold two-thirds to leave the top part exposed for information such as the time, notifications, battery percentage, among others. Notably, the panel size is said to be 7-inches when unfolded.

A pilot production line for Samsung's foldable OLED display in South Korea is said to begin over the summer. Following the sorting out of issues that come up on the pilot line, Samsung will start mass-production of the foldable panel by the end of 2018. While the initial production capacity may reportedly be 1,00,000 units, Samsung is said to be planning to manufacture one million units of the foldable OLED display by 2019.

Previous reports had suggested that Samsung is planning to show the prototype of its new development to US and European mobile carriers in private meetings during CES 2019 in Las Vegas. However, the device is expected to publicly debut as the Galaxy X at next year's MWC. It is also reported that Samsung is keen to safeguard the "world's first" title by launching the foldable smartphone ahead of the competition. Nevertheless, companies including Apple, Huawei, Motorola, and ZTE are also working on similar developments that we could see sometime after the arrival of Samsung's model. Also, Samsung is predicted to bring the unique hardware with a price as high as KRW 2 million (approximately Rs. 1,25,000).