Samsung has denied a media report that claimed that the company had begun manufacturing its first foldable device, the Galaxy Fold, in India. Citing tipster Ishan Agarwal, mysmartprice claimed that “Samsung has started manufacturing the phone in India and is likely to formally launch it in the country very soon.” However, when Digit reached out to the South Korean tech giant for clarification, it outright rejected the development, calling it a hoax. This certainly means that the ill-fated phone will not be manufactured in the country.
Amid much fan-fare, Samsung introduced the Galaxy Fold last year, and officially ‘unfolded’ it in February 2019. The Galaxy Fold was initially scheduled to hit the shelves in April in the US and in May in Korea. However, it didn't happen. The company had sent the devices to top reviewers in the US, but some of them reported that their unit had malfunctioned. At that time, Samsung issued a statement noting the possible causes of malfunctioning and retrieved the phones for further development.
Samsung claimed that this had happened because the reviewers removed the protective film from the screen. It was later revealed in an iFixit teardown that the phone also had small openings that let tiny particles enter the internals of the phone causing damage to the screen. In the meantime, the company indefinitely postponed the launch of the phone. It was rumored that the Galaxy Fold launch would take place in July. However, Samsung denied the rumours, saying, “If we are running such a media event this month, we should be doing something by now. Nothing has progressed since the April delay.”
In the latest development, the Galaxy smartphone series-maker confirmed that it had resolved all the display-related issues and that the phone was ready to hit the market. The Samsung Galaxy Fold was launched earlier this year at a price of $1,980 (approx Rs 1.37 lakh). It sports an HD+ Super AMOLED panel. The display on the outside is 4.6 inches in size, and when unfolded, turns into a 7.3-inch tablet screen with a ‘Dynamic AMOLED display’. The handset runs on a “7nm processor,” which is most likely the Samsung Exynos 9820, and comes with 12GB of RAM and 512GB of UFS 3.0 storage. The handset houses a 4380mAh battery.
As far as manufacturing in India in concerned, last year Samsung invested Rs 4,915 crore in its mobile phone manufacturing facility, which is in Noida, Uttar Pradesh. The new plant is said to double the company’s phone manufacturing to 120 million units a year, up from 68 million, in a phase-wise expansion that will be completed by 2020. In January, a report claimed that the company would reduce manufacturing smartphones in the country.
This is not the first time that a news has come out as a hoax. Tipsters usually get information from their industry sources and then release it in the public domain. While this is one of the primary sources of news for the media industry, some of the tipsters have started to ‘leak’ random information to gain traction. Digit advises its readers to be aware of fake news, and confirm the development before believing in them.