Samsung may be launching a foldable smartphone as early as January, according to a leak that has surfaced online.
According to rumour blog SamMobile, the device dubbed ‘Project Valley’ is currently being tested in China.
The site reports that the device is being tested in two hardware configurations, one with a Snapdragon 620 processor and the other with a Snapdragon 820.
Further speculation was sparked after purported images of the device were featured on Chinese microblogging site Weibo.
Rumours have been swirling around Samsung launching a folding device since June, when SamMobile reported that Samsung could be working on a "dual screen, possibly foldable" smartphone.
LG has already released two generations of its bendy phones, the LG G Flex series. The devices have received mixed reviews.
How much demand there is for a flexible smartphone is questionable. According to a recent survey by uSwitch of UK smartphone owners, flexible smartphones were only seen as useful by 8 percent of mobile users.
This is line with other features seen as gimmicks such as curved displays, eyeball tracking technology and customised exteriors, found useful by 4 percent, 7 percent and 8 percent respectively.
In fact, 82 percent believed that mobile phones were evolving so fast that manufacturers were forgetting about the basics, with 28 percent primarily concerned with simplicity of use.