As previously rumoured, Samsung indeed brought its highly-speculated foldable smartphone, dubbed the Galaxy X, to the CES 2018 this week to showcase the device privately to interested partners.
Although it's not a very surprising move by Samsung, considering that the company has done this at previous CES editions, the confidential unveiling of the so-called foldable smartphone is significant as the phone appeared "almost finished," insider sources told The Korea Herald.
"Samsung Display said it has developed a 7.3-inch foldable panel with plans to start production later this year," an industry source told the publication.
Samsung is said to have unveiled both infolding and outfolding prototypes of the phone during the meeting. The company, however, is likely to sell only the infolding type with a more drastic curvature rate compared to the outfolding type which will be kept for a more advanced next-generation technology.
"Samsung attracted more clients to the private meeting compared to last year. The phone development seems to be almost finished, raising expectations for the phone launch," another anonymous source revealed.
The report also reiterated earlier rumours that Samsung would start production of the foldable smartphone from November.
An ET News report said earlier this week that the phone could enter mass production in November while an official announcement could take place in December, or sometime in early 2019.
The same report also said that Samsung was planning to finalise the design of the foldable display for the smartphone in March, followed by the mass production of the panels in September.
Koh Dong-jin, the president of the company's mobile business, had earlier said that the long-rumoured foldable smartphone would finally be introduced in 2018.
"We have a plan to adopt a foldable display in our roadmap. We are currently addressing some technological hurdles to commercialize such a device," Koh said in September last year. "We will launch a foldable device when we are fully ready, and we are aiming to do so next year."
