According to a report from Korea, Samsung is progressing with its rollable OLED development project, and the company aims to launch its first rollable smartphone in 2025. When fully opened, the phone will sport a very large 12.4" display. Interestingly, Samsung apparently will implement an under-the-display camera solution.
Samsung's acceleration of its rollable phone project is seen as the Korean device maker's response to Huawei's tri-folding smartphone, the Mate XT. It is seen that this was an embarrassment for Samsung, that recently also to witness LG Display's leading over it with tandem OLED production. It will remain to be seen whether Samsung's acceleration will lead to problems in quality and reliability - which happened when it launched the world's first foldable phone back in 2019.
We already reported on Samsung decision to accelerate its rollable smartphone project in February 2024. This will be very interesting to watch. It is likely that the price of such a phone will be extremely high (Huawei's own tri-foldabble Mate XT costs $2,800) - and such device launches are more about making a statement in the first generation devices. On the other hand a large 12.4" display could bring this device into the category of large tablets or even laptops, which could be appealing to some consumers.
Samsung (and others) have been developing rollable OLED technologies for many years. Samsung demonstrated its 12"4 rollable OLED earlier this year, and the company is also working on larger 17" rollable displays for laptops - together with Intel and maybe also Lenovo.
LG Display was the first company to commercialize a rollable OLED, with its 2020 65" rollable TV, which was later discontinued due to its high price. China's Visionox also commercialized a rollable automotive OLED display, already adopted by Hongqi and Voyah.
The OLED industry is in an interesting state, undergoing many changes - including the initial construction of 8.6-Gen IT AMOLED lines, the adoption of tandem OLED architectures, new emitter materials that are getting closer to commercialization, and novel new rollable and tri-foldable OLED displays. Our OLED Toolbox is an excellent resource to make sure you understand the direction of the OLED market, align your R&D and marketing budgets correctly and to stay on top of the game.
