Samsung Display’s principal engineer said Tuesday foldable phones may not be commercialized until 2019 as bezel-free display currently sells well and the foldable display still has technical challenges to be addressed.

There have been wide speculations in the market that Samsung may unveil its foldable phones that can both work as smartphones and tablets sometime this year or next year.

“Because the bezel-free display currently sells well, we still have enough time to develop foldable display. The technology is expected to be mature around 2019,” said Kim Tae-woong, Samsung Display’s principal engineer, at the Display TechSalon held in Seoul. 

Chung Won-seok, an analyst at HI Investment and Securities, gave the same outlook during the seminar, saying, “Samsung Display is expected to commercialize foldable phones in 2019 because the company does not need to sell the new hardware because it is already enjoying 20 percent of operating profits with bezel-free display.

“When the demand for bezel-free handsets slows down, Samsung will unveil the foldable display as the next card.”

Kim told The Korea Herald after the conference that the company’s foldable display in fact still has some technical challenges to be improved.

Samsung Display said single foldable phones are likely to be unveiled first before multi-foldable (both sides) phones are introduced.

By Shin Ji-hye (shinjh@heraldcorp.com)