Who will win tech firms' battle to create and issue the first smartphone with flexible screen? From all indications, it appears it won't be an American, Chinese or Japanese company, but a South Korean tech giant.

But which one since Seoul has two giant tech firms - Samsung and LG?

While Samsung had shown prototypes of flexible screens at the CES 2013, The Wall Street Journal reported that LG plans to roll out a flexible OLED smartphone phone 2013 ends, citing LG VP of Mobile Yoon By-hyun.

Mr Yoon hinted it would come out in the fourth quarter of this year. Since 2012, LG has been preparing for the mass production of flexible screens, initially targeted for release to the market by the second half of 2013.

The prototype shown by Samsung was not a clamshell device as expected by many people that would open up and show a bigger panel, but instead wrapped the flexible display around the edge which allowed the user glance notification without the need to power up the whole display.

But Samsung then clarified it is not what the actual product under development would look like but only a concept of what a flexible OLED could be used for.

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