On Monday Samsung sent out invitations to their Galaxy S10 unboxing event that will take place in San Francisco on Wednesday February 20.  The hint within the graphic suggests that Samsung might introduce their folding smartphone at this event.

Once their invitation for the event was established online, Samsung executives went into high gear talking up their coming folding phone. No, not their Galaxy S10 bur rather their foldable smartphone to show you the priority that Samsung is giving this next-gen smartphone category.

Kim Hark-sang, Samsung's head of their visual R&D team and mobile communications business, sat down with a Korean publication on Tuesday and began by stating that "users will be able to do even more with their smartphones as mobile technologies like 5G and artificial intelligence rapidly mature, supporting the need for a bigger screen."

Samsung's upcoming foldable phone is just the beginning of its smartphone innovation as a larger display expands the possibilities of user experiences.

"Instead of accepting the status quo, resolving the contradiction between screen size and portability and developing a new form factor became the central focus of our innovation efforts."

Kim further noted that unveiling the Infinity Flex Display in November signaled the company's efforts to find new growth momentum in the weakening smartphone market.

"After the prototypes of the flexible display debuted at CES 2011, it took another seven years to perfect the technology and deliver a truly meaningful experience to users," Kim said. "From developing new materials to overcoming mechanical challenges, the foldable screen demanded a total reconfiguration of the smartphone from inside out."

Samsung has created a "natural and durable folding experience" that can withstand hundreds of thousands of folds, with new ways of placing the battery, cooling system and camera inside the slim body, Kim said.

The company also developed an intuitive user experience to ensure applications can transition seamlessly between the smaller and larger displays, he noted.

"The arrival of the Infinity Flex Display is just the beginning," Kim said. "We will continue pushing the limits of possibility and shape the future as it unfolds."

The following day, Samsung's Federico Casalegno, head of Samsung Design Innovation Center, held a major meeting with the press to talk up their upcoming foldable smartphone at their design center in Jackson Square, a neighborhood in San Francisco inhabited by companies brimming with ideas of integrating designs into new technologies born in Silicon Valley.

Federico Casalegno explained that the center at the moment is focused on designing user experiences on Samsung’s mobile products, including the upcoming foldable smartphone: "The foldable phone is a breakthrough in technology innovation."  

Considering that the Samsung foldable phone, when unfolded, is expected to have three screens that can operate three different interfaces at once, Casalegno said." For now you design only one interface, but when you start to open up the possibilities, there are new breakthrough innovations that we can imagine in terms of how the human and computer interact.”

Compared to the wrap-around display phone -- which Apple seems to be looking into as one possible design for its foldable model -- Casalegno said Samsung’s in-folding display phone could provide better experiences for users in terms of design.

Casalegno added that "Our group is working to reinvent and reimagine how we can create new experiences based on this new platform. The millennial consumer have become a major consumer segment, we are trying to understand millennials' lifestyles and expectations to get the interface just right.

Casalegno also noted that Samsung is very well positioned to design the foldable smartphone OS because Android wasn't designed for foldable devices. Though back in November, Google's head of Android UX Glen Murphy, announced that they were working with Samsung to have Android ready for their foldable smartphone.  

Lastly Casalegno said that the foldable phone is definitely challenging for us as nobody has done it. For the foldable smartphone, we will design the user experience by ourselves with innovative ideas."

That last statement had me laughing.  It's as if he was admitting that without Apple to copy, it's been very challenging for them to come up a new user experience.

With such a concentration of coordinated news all week from Samsung on their coming foldable smartphone, it's clear that they're banging the drum to get the media buzzed about this next-gen smartphone category.

Samsung's executives spoke as though no one else in the industry will be launching a competing foldable phone this year and it was up to Samsung to save the day for a new user interface for foldable phones. Yet earlier this month a Huawei VP went on record promising to deliver a foldable smartphone later this year as well.

There's also a third player preparing to deliver a folding phone in the not-too-distant future. An anonymous video surfaced this week by famous leaker Evan Blass. The foldable phone is reportedly a Xiaomi prototype as shown below. What's unique about this design is that the phone doesn't fold in half like other prototypes but rather has folding left and right wings that fold backward behind the main displays which is very cool.

Can't speak to the authenticity of this video or device, but it's allegedly made by Xiaomi, I'm told. Hot new phone, or gadget porn deepfake? pic.twitter.com/qwFogWiE2F

— Evan Blass (@evleaks) January 3, 2019

With a few foldable smartphones on the way and 5G ready smartphones debuting in February and launching in late March, it's clear that Android OEMs are going to make 2019 a very interesting year indeed. Here's to hoping that Apple can match that excitement if not surpass it.