Smartphone giant Samsung has many innovations when it comes to smartphone design. Most recently, it introduced curved phone screens in the form of its flagship Galaxy phones' Infinity Display, which uses a flexible screen to achieve the design. Next year, the company is looking to make a leap in this regard by launching a foldable smartphone with a bendable display.
Samsung's president of mobile communications, Koh Dong-jin, is eyeing a 2018 release for this new smartphone. It will be launched under its flagship Galaxy Note premium smartphone series.
According to the executive, there are still a number of obstacles that the company must overcome before the foldable smartphone could be launched. "As the head of the business, I can say our current goal is next year," he said in a report from Bloomberg. "When we can overcome some problems for sure, we will launch the product."
"We are digging thoroughly into several issues we must overcome, as we don't want to just make a few, sell a few and be done. We want to hear that Samsung made a very good product," Koh told Reuters.
Although the company is still perfecting the technology, the current design of the Galaxy smartphones has put Samsung in the forefront of smartphone innovation. The recently launched Galaxy Note 8 has broken presale records since it opened for pre-orders last month.
Samsung has been playing with the concept of a foldable phone for some time now. It was in 2012 that the company unveiled the flexible AMOLED screen called Youm. The concept was developed from a prototype to becoming the signature feature on its flagship devices.
With the company's vision, the Infinity Display of today's most popular Samsung devices may just be stepping stones to the more advanced foldable smartphones that Samsung sees in the future.
