Does Samsung's folding phone hold the key to higher foldable display sales?

Bezel-less smartphones are the hottest trend today but phones with folding screens might catch fire soon as the next big thing in smartphone display technologies. A number of mobile phone brands have been experimenting on folding touchscreens in the recent years, and yesterday, Samsung already gave a preview of its new foldable phone at its developer conference in San Francisco.

Is Samsung finally the maker that gets the foldable mobile touchscreen right? We’ll have to see when the final device launches soon. Samsung says “in the coming months” and is working on prolonging the device’s battery life, too. Basing on the specs made public though – that the smartphone looks to have no center bezel, can turn into a tablet that runs three apps simultaneously, and integrates a 4.58in 21:9 840x1960p cover display that turns on or off depending if the unit is folded, and a 7.3in 1536x2152p main “Infinity Flex Display” – it seems that the model may have outshined existing prototypes that do not support multiple apps onscreen, are unable to remove the thick bezels and have lower screen resolutions.

Other attempts at a folding touchscreen phone include ZTE’s Axon M which adopts a split-screen design, Huawei’s prototype foldable phone with a planned 2019 release date, and Lenovo’s folding phone that is flexible enough to wrap around the wrist like a smartwatch.

With these developments, the global foldable display electronics market segment is expected to post immense revenues reaching $8.9 billion by 2022, according to research by US-based firm Display Supply Chain Consultants. Smartphone makers like Samsung that are planning to release their own foldable touchscreen phones are a big driver for that projected market growth.

The abovementioned moves by big mobile brands could also contribute to increasing shipments for the smartphone market, a comeback that’s needed after a 6 percent YoY decline in Q3 2018 shipments. Lack of innovation that causes buyers to change phone models less frequently is among the causes. Now that folding touchscreen phones are here, consumers are starting to see fresh concepts and designs that can motivate them to make a purchase.

Big brands jumping into the big trend would also mean that other manufacturers will be following suit. Importers can expect China foldable and tablet phone brands, for instance, to release smartphones of those kind and announce their own innovative versions, too.