Samsung has been expected to reveal their new foldable smartphone prototype to the limited audience at Mobile World Congress 2017, later this month. Earlier rumors suggested that Samsung will launch foldable phones in Q4 2017, but now a report states that the device will be set up for production at the end of this year and will be out for sale possibly next year.

According to Digit Samsung's foldable smartphones will go into production in fourth quarter 2017. The report citing Taiwan's supply chain says the handset will go in for a trial production in the fourth quarter of this year. The massive production of the device is expected to start only in second half of 2018.

 As per Gadgets, Samsung Electronics and Display are preparing to showcase both in-foldable products, which can be secretly like the book and out-foldable products, which bend panels externally. Both companies have reportedly finished making "videos of new prototypes and others."

One of the possible reasons why Samsung is unveiling the foldable displays and smartphones to other companies as it could plan to sell displays and technology to other handset vendors for commercial use especially giant companies like Apple.  

Moreover, Samsung has already patented the design of its foldable smartphone. A recent patent filing revealed that Samsung is working on a new form of device which can be easily folded or unfolded semi-automatically. Internally the device is reported to be named as Galaxy X and it's expected to be the future lineup for Samsung's mobile.

Samsung is the biggest manufacturer of OLED displays and also supplies to other vendor companies, it holds a sizeable lead in the field of bendable OLED displays. However, the company won't be able to launch the product early due to some technical issues involving the production and reliability of polyimide-based plastic cover.