2019 was supposed to be the year of the foldable smartphones, but things aren’t looking too good for this exciting form factor right now. Not only did the world’s first foldable smartphone launched by a major Android handset vendor failed to launch because of unexpected manufacturing defects, but the most exciting foldable handset of the year might be impacted by the recent episodes of the never-ending trade war with China. We’re talking about the Galaxy Fold and Huawei Mate X, respectively, which are yet to hit stores. And the former might see further delays according to a new report from Korea.
In recent weeks, Samsung informed US buyers who preordered the foldable phone that they’ll have the option of canceling their orders if the phone isn’t delivered until May 31st. Separately, Best Buy canceled Galaxy Fold preorders in the country. Meanwhile, Samsung assured its customers that the Galaxy Fold is still on track to launch this year and that it won’t be too late.
As a reminder, the Galaxy Fold turned out to be a huge PR disaster for Samsung, but at least the Korean handset maker was able to prevent an embarrassment for Note 7 proportion, by postponing the launch. That’s because many early review units revealed a few manufacturing issues with the handset that ultimately led to critical display failures.
Samsung is taking more time to fix the flaws, The Korea Herald reports, according to industry sources. Telecom officials say the launch is likely to happen after June, which was Samsung’s new goal. A new schedule will be announced “in the coming weeks” according to Samsung, although telecom officials who had access to the fixed versions of the Fold, which need to be retested on carrier networks, seem to think otherwise.
While not committing to any new launch date for the foldable handset, Samsung denied speculation surrounding the extension of delays. “The improvement process is taking place extremely confidentially, and comments from telecom industry sources can’t be confirmed,” Samsung said.
