Samsung Electronics on Friday denied media reports that the company has sold one million Galaxy Fold smartphones globally since the device's launch in September.

Samsung Electronics President Sohn Young-kwon said at a conference organized by U.S. tech media TechCrunch that the South Korean tech giant has sold 1 million Galaxy Folds so far, double the industry's earlier estimate.

But a Samsung spokesman said Sohn may have confused the figure with the company's initial sales target for the year, emphasizing that sales of the tech firm's first foldable handset have not reached 1 million units.

Earlier, Samsung said it expected to sell 500,000 Galaxy Fold globally this year.

Many analysts previously expected that Samsung would sell about 400,000 to 500,000 units of the foldable phone this year.

The Galaxy Fold, which has a 7.3-inch screen that users can fold horizontally like a book, officially went on sale in September with a price tag of around US$2,000.

Industry insiders said Samsung's foldable phone sales will pick up next year, with a possible 6 million units sold in 2020.

It is rumored that Samsung will unveil its new clamshell-style foldable smartphone in February 2020 alongside its Galaxy S11 series.

"Samsung is expected to sell 6 million units of its foldable phone in 2020 and 20 million units in 2021," Choi Bo-young, an analyst at Kyobo Securities, said. "Prices of foldable phones are expected to go down gradually, and this would push up demand for foldable handsets." (Yonhap)