Eric Zeman / Android Authority
TL;DR
- A new report claims that Samsung is increasing its capacity to make Samsung foldable displays for smartphones.
- The report says that it is expanding its display production plant in Vietnam later this year.
- The need for more displays is driven by the high demand for foldable phones.
The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 and the Galaxy Z Flip 3 have just been launched. However, the company is apparently not waiting around to see if they will be sales successes. Instead, it is reportedly going all-in on future foldable smartphone production. A new report from The Korean Economic Daily claims that Samsung Display is gearing up for a major plant expansion designed to increase its flexible displays production greatly.
The story claims that Samsung’s display plant in Bac Ninh, Vietnam, will begin its expansion later this year, for completion in late 2021 or early 2022. Once it’s finished, the story says the plant will increase its foldable display production from 17 million units to 25 million units a year, or about 47%. The report claims that 10 million of those displays will be for future Galaxy Z Fold phones, while the other 15 million units will be for the smaller Galaxy Z Flip handsets.
See also: The best foldable phones you can get
The story also reports that pre-orders of its two latest foldable phones have already generated 920,000 unit presales in its native South Korea. It also claims that pre-orders in China have topped one million units. By comparison, the flawed original Galaxy Fold sold just 500,000 units worldwide, while the Galaxy Z Fold 2 and Galaxy Z Flip phones only sold a combined total of 1.5 million units. The article claims that Samsung has already made 3 million combined units of its two latest foldable phones in its first two months of production.
If Samsung is indeed successful in making the Galaxy Z Fold 3 and the Galaxy Z Flip 3 big hits, you can bet that its competition will also make foldable phones a bigger priority. That should also cause Samsung Display to get bigger orders from third-party phone makers as well.
