Motorola has unveiled a ‘rollable’ smartphone at Mobile World Congress.
Ryan Browne | CNBC
BARCELONA — Motorola is showing off a concept smartphone that unrolls when a user pulls it up.
The phone, unveiled at the Mobile World Congress technology conference in Barcelona, has a flexible five-inch screen that stretches to 6.5 inches when pushed up.
The idea is to enable better productivity and multitasking, while easily fitting in your pocket.
To be sure, the phone isn’t something you’ll be able to buy anytime soon. The phone is in an early concept stage, and there’s no telling how much it will cost.
Motorola is no longer the major mobile industry player it once was – the company shipped 51 million units in 2021, according to Statista data.
At least the design shows innovation in a market that has struggled to come up with new features to get consumers excited.
Companies hope to change that with new form factors, like foldable displays.
“It underscores the explosion of innovation going on around flexible display technology with a host of concept products experimenting with a wide range of form factors,” Ben Wood, principal analyst at CCS Insight, told CNBC.
The device comes at a time of pain for smartphone makers.
Last year, the industry saw sales fall 11.3% as consumers tightened their belts, exacerbating an ongoing trend of people holding on to their phones longer as upgrades from major players become incremental.
Lenovo, which owns Motorola, also unveiled a rollable laptop at the conference this week. Like the phone, the laptop slowly rises vertically so you can see more of a web page or have multiple apps open on one screen.