According to rumors from ETNEWS (Korea IT News) and the Vine Report, LG and Samsung respectively are working towards releasing foldable display panels by 2016.
ETNEWS claims that some insiders have tipped them off about the mass production plans at LG for foldable display panels for smartphones. This report also mentions that the company behind the upcoming foldable smartphone is a “global software company” that plans to challenge the dominance of Samsung and Apple in the smartphone industry.
Source: GSMArena.com / LG Foldable Display Roadmap
The source also stated that the company was evaluating Samsung foldable display panels as well, but decided to go with LG instead. There is also a statement that the investment into the manufacturing facility will be split between LG and the future customer. With earlier announcements of major investments by LG in flexible OLED manufacturing technology, one has to wonder if this is referring to the same master plan. The development at LG also includes plastic board and touch panel material to go with the flexible display. The reports say that the display can be folded more than 100,000 cycles and still be operational. (which would match what Samsung Display told us at CES (Samsung Display Backs OLED – Man. Ed.)
On the other hand, the Vine Report points to Samsung as releasing a foldable smartphone in early 2016. The rumor goes back to a Chinese blogging site where a user describes a foldable Samsung smartphone under the code name Project Valley (or Project V). Both prototypes are using a Qualcomm processor (Snapdragon 620 and 820). The rumor also includes that the Samsung foldable device will be released by January 2016 (that would mean the announcement will come at CES).
Source: GforGames.com / Samsung Project Valley
The reports also refer back to some statements by a Samsung executive of Samsung Display that there will be a surprise coming and that Samsung has a foldable OLED display production capacity of 30,000 to 40,000 flexible displays per month by 2016. Of course Samsung would be the only one with such capacity in the coming year.
Analyst Comment:
From a pure display technology perspective this may be great news and if it materializes, will mark the real beginning of the flexible display era. On the other hand, we have to remember that these kinds of rumors have existed for quite some time and maybe a little overblown. Nevertheless, it has to happen sometime and 2016 is as good a date as any other if the technology is actually ready for the mass market.
Then there is the well known rivalry between LG and Samsung with each trying to outdo the other. In the case of flexible OLED displays, being first will mean a lot of bragging rights between the companies are on the line. Since Samsung has been seen as the leader in the small OLED game for a while, LG coming even close to rival Samsung in the flexible OLED field would mean a major shift in technology leadership.
However, investment announcements in manufacturing facilities by LG today, would also mean that significant manufacturing capacity will not be available until mid to end of 2016 at the earliest.
This is where the story is running a little out of line, anyway. If anybody wants to challenge Samsung and Apple in the smartphone market, the display manufacturing capacity may better be measured by the tens of millions. This seems a stretch at the moment for either LG or Samsung. – NH
