Samsung making 5.9 inch phablet

Samsung Electronics plans to introduce a 5.9 inch handset in the later half of this year to solidify its leadership in the phablet market.

A company official who declined to be named, told The Korea Times on Wednesday Samsung was working on introducing a new phablet using a 5.9 inch organic light-emitting diode (OLED) screen.

The new handset will be powered by its in-house Exynos octa-core chipset to meet the demand for faster data processing and downloading speed.

The move comes as part of South Korean electronics giant to further strengthen its hold over the phablet market, where Chinese firms  ZTE and Huawei have unveiled similar products. The firm also expects to see a rapid rise in its phablet business, which will help maintain its lead over rivals, including Apple, another inside source from Samsung, said.

When approached by ZDNet Asia, Samsung said it is "unable to provide comments on market rumors".

The report of Samsung's latest phablet comes on the heels of the company's expected Galaxy S4 launch on March 14 in New York, its latest smartphone which will target the enterprise market with a mobile device management software called Knox. It also launched an addition to the Note series, an 8-inch tablet Galaxy Note 8, at Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona last month.

The launch of phablets had dominated the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas in January, including the 5-inch display Xperia Z by Sony and LG's 5-inch screen Optimus Vu. Industry watchers told ZDNet Asia phablets cater to a niche group of consumers looking for an immersive user experience on a mobile device small enough to fit their palm, they are still of little threat to smartphones or tablets as it is still an emerging product.