2021 Is The Year Of Folding Display Smartphones

The coming year will probably be the “year of smartphones with a foldable display”. After only two manufacturers, Huawei and Samsung, have so far offered devices with foldable screens, they are supposed to appear in greater numbers in 2021.

As Ross Young, analyst and market observer at Display Supply Chain Consultants, announced on Twitter, the second half of 2021 should bring a few busy months for many manufacturers of folding displays for smartphones. Allegedly, in addition to Huawei and Samsung, various other providers are planning corresponding devices.

Specifically, Young speaks of the introduction of at least three new smartphones with a foldable display from Samsung, with a kind of Galaxy Z Flip Lite being planned, which should be significantly cheaper than its predecessor. Oppo also reportedly has smartphones with a foldable display under development.

Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi and even Google are reportedly following suit

According to Young, Vivo and Xiaomi are also working flat out on the first smartphones with a foldable display. Chinese manufacturers are to plan four models. All of the devices he mentions are allegedly slated for launch next year, although the manufacturer’s plans may still change. There are some very interesting additional details in Young’s statements. The analyst says that with Google even the group behind the commercial success of Android wants to bring a smartphone with a foldable display onto the market for the first time. With such a device, Google would for the first time venture into the area of ​​very unusual form factors, but it should make various improvements for the use of Android on smartphones with a folding display, if only for its own benefit.

Another detail is that, according to Ross, LG does not deal with foldable, but primarily with rollable displays in smartphones. The Korean Samsung competitor supposedly wants to use it to explore alternative form factors and to commercialize them.