We exclusively revealed three years ago that Samsung is working on a foldable smartphone codenamed “Project Valley.” There have been a lot of rumors and reports about the device since then and while Samsung is yet to officially launch this handset, it appears that the company believes that this handset is going to be a “Winner.”
According to a new report out of South Korea, Samsung has renamed its foldable smartphone project. It's no longer referred to as Project Valley internally. The report claims that Samsung now refers to its foldable smartphone project as Winner.
Samsung might launch it at MWC 2019
Samsung had said late last year that it was looking to launch the foldable smartphone in 2018 but that hasn't happened so far. The company is yet to confirm when this much-awaited device will be out but it did say two months ago that its foldable smartphone is not going to be a gimmick.
Samsung mobile division CEO DJ Koh revealed that the company has been making progress on the device and that it will only deliver the handset when its confident that it will deliver the best user experience.
Some industry watchers believe that the decision to change the codename means that Samsung is now moving beyond the development stage and has made up its mind to release the handset. The company has reportedly informed its suppliers to start supplying components for the device from this November. If that is accurate then we should expect the Samsung foldable smartphone to be launched early next year, possibly at the Mobile World Congress in February 2019.
The company is said to make between 300,000-500,000 units of this handset initially to see the market response. If there's demand for the handset it would then ramp up production. The report also claims that it's going to be an in-folding smartphone with three 3.5-inch OLED screens two of which will be inside and one on the outside.
No word as yet on how much Samsung is going to charge for this device and which markets will be the first to get it.
