Samsung May Finally Debut Its Foldable Phones This Year

Foldable phones are coming!

Samsung and rival LG are preparing to roll out their foldables at the latter part of 2017. And it's about time. We've been seeing reports of phones that bend or fold over the past years, with Samsung filing a patent for it and supposedly already developing one since August of last year — there's even an ad for it already. And even Apple filed a patent for one.

"Samsung is expected to roll out more than 100,000 units of fold-out devices in the third quarter," according to a source who spoke to The Korea Herald. "Since the company already secured fold-in phone technology, it was not a big challenge to shift into the fold-out phones."

 

However, Samsung has to straighten out some wrinkles of marketability and profitability issues before it decides to make the phone available. "The final decision will be made after the personnel reshuffle of the company’s information technology and mobile communications unit is carried out," the source said.

On the other hand, LG plans to release more than 100,000 foldable devices later this year. According to another source, LG's been working on foldable technology for two or three years now and is already more advanced than Samsung. LG's foldable tech, however, may not translate to phones of their own but could be for clients like Apple or Huawei.