Flexible Displays – Two years late

After two years, Samsung has decided to experiment.

• After much delay it seems that a device with a curved display is about to make a debut on the market.
• This technology has been in the works for more than three years but now the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 is expected to have a brother called the Galaxy Note 3 active.
• The device will have a bendable plastic display and will also be waterproof along the lines of the Sony Experia devices.
• The delays have been caused by two problems.
• Firstly: yield. The encapsulation of the curved display has proved to be tricky and yields have been so low that the devices would have been too expensive and too unreliable for the market.
• I believe that this problem has largely been solved.
• Secondly: demand. Samsung has been struggling to work out what these displays add to the user experience and has come up blank.
• Likewise, many of its handset customers are of the same opinion as Samsung has met with no real demand when trying to sell these screens to other handset makers.
• I have long been a believer in bendable and flexible displays but at the moment, I am in the minority.
• I agree completely with Samsung and the other handset makers that there is no obvious use for a curved or a flexible display.
• However, even a curved display enables significant form factor differentiation and in Android that is a very rare commodity.
• A screen that curves around the bezel is a pointless gimmick but history has repeatedly shown that pointless gimmicks sell phones if they are perceived to be cool.
• Hence, I see this as an experiment by Samsung to see what demand a curved display will generate.
• If it proves popular, I can see many more models in the works and also screen supply evaporating for customers outside of the Samsung group.
• It is through these screens and the resulting form factor differentiation that I can see Samsung hanging onto its margins in smartphones while it works out how to move up into software and services.
• Samsung is cheap but there is no momentum or catalyst that I can see that will enable the shares to challenge previous highs.