Huawei is looking to beat Samsung to the punch by being the first to launch a foldable smartphone with flexible screen, although it is possible the company is looking for a symbolic victory rather than a commercial one.

According to Nikkei Asian Review, the global smartphone number three player will use a flexible OLED panel from BOE Technology Group. It said the first batch could be “very small” – a run of 20,000 to 30,000 units was mooted – with the aim of beating the South Korean company to market.

The move is intended “mainly to demonstrate its technology capability and to attract the industry’s attention and media coverage”, an unnamed source said.

BOE, it was noted, is “heavily subsidised by the government”, and is already a leading manufacturer of TV screens. It is moving in to the OLED market, and would also be keen to demonstrate its prowess – one analyst said that “profitability for this project is not the first priority” for the companies.

The smartphone rumour mill has picked up pace recently, with regard to a flexible screen from a Samsung device which is expected early in 2019. According to The Wall Street Journal, it has a 7-inch screen and can be “folded in half, like a wallet”.

The advantage of such a device is that when open it would offer a large screen, but when closed deliver more portability. It would also offer some innovation in a smartphone market that has become characterised by incremental upgrades.

Previous foldable devices have used hinges and fixed displays, rather than a foldable panel.

But the screen is not the only challenge: battery design is also a major factor, in particular for Samsung which would not want to risk a repeat of its earlier Note 7 woes.

And it would not be the first time that Huawei has pulled off a similar move. In 2015, it touted a version of its Mate S device with pressure sensing display, shortly before Apple introduced the same feature in iPhone 6s.