Reportedly, Samsung will come out with a technological marvel next year. A Samsung smartphone flagship will be a foldable one, and a hybrid tablet and smartphone at that.

According to South Korea-based publication ETNews, Samsung is applying final touches on a foldable smartphone, ready for unveiling by 2017. Reportedly, the South Korea-based tech giant has been working on the project for some time now, acquiring the needed technology to proceed with such as task. The result will be a smartphone/tablet hybrid, using foldable OLED display.

The technology behind the foldable display already has a prototype being tested, as per Samsung Display.

Director Lee Chang-hoon stated, "The development of foldable OLED is taking place according to our plan. We are planning on mass-production and release of this product by discussing with our partners."

Allegedly, the new lineup will allow a Samsung flagship to retain a smartphone's size when folded up, minimum of a 5-inch screen flagship. However, when revealed, the foldable smartphone can have a screen size of up to a 7-inch one, which is already comparable to a tablet.

The industry observer said that the new technology marvel will inject new interest towards the smartphone market, which is reportedly already dwindling down. The new innovation is expected to raise the smartphone wars another notch.

Indeed, having a new innovation as one of the features is one of constant events in the smartphone industry. Just recently, another South Korea-based tech giant, LG, introduced a new modular design for their smartphone flagship the G5, complete with a lineup of accessories that changes the design of the flagship, and adds some more hardware features to the iteration. Meanwhile, other new releases like the HTC 10 and the Huawei P9 have been pushing for a newer and improved camera features. Upcoming flagships are said to improve under-the-hood specs, coming out with higher battery capacities and better performance by adding RAM and using new chipsets.