Samsung Electronics Co., the world's largest smartphone maker, is planning to roll out mobile devices with slightly curved screens in the fourth quarter of this year, a senior company official said, in a move to continue its dominance in the market.

Park Sang-jin, CEO of Samsung SDI, told reporters that the country's tech giant plans to release the new portable device that adopts plastic organic light-emitting diode (OLED) panels.

"As plastic liquid crystal displays are strong enough to neither shatter even when dropped on the ground nor need frames, it is possible to produce devices with unique designs," Park said. "The curved panels are not flexible."

Samsung SDI Co. provides battery products to be used in the tech giant's smartphones and other portable devices.

LG Electronics Inc., Samsung's smaller local rival, earlier announced that it also plans to release plastic OLED-based smartphones in the fourth quarter, but they reportedly have flat screens, market sources said. (Yonhap news)