(Yicai Global) Aug. 23 -- BOE Technology will start shipping an upgraded version of its flexible screens for foldable smartphones in the second half of this year in time for the Christmas season, a top executive at the leading Chinese display panel maker told Yicai Global.

The flexible displays in foldable handsets currently on the market cannot be truly bent, BOE Vice President Chang Cheng said at a media event held yesterday at the company's Mianyang plant in Sichuan province. They can bend only slightly over a fixed curvature, he added.

Beijing-based BOE has two production lines for flexible active-matrix organic light-emitting diode screens in Sichuan's Mianyang and Chengdu cities, and is planning a third for Chongqing. Global shipments of AMOLED displays reached 159 million units last year and is expected to climb at a compound annual growth rate of 15 percent to reach 481 million units by 2026, Chang said.

True foldable screens only started to be properly developed this year, Chang said. U-folding displays should be available from next year and Z-folding ones by 2022 or 2023.

The state-owned company is better known for its liquid crystal display panels used in bigger consumer electronics such as televisions, laptops and tablets. But it is moving strongly into the mobile phone arena. Batches of BOE's AMOLED screens have been used by telecoms equipment giant Huawei Technologies in its Mate 20 series and by ZTE's Nubia unit in its Z20 smartphones, Chang said.

The much-anticipated Huawei Mate X foldable phone and Samsung's Galaxy Fold debuted at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February. They are still undergoing final tests and have yet to hit the shops.