Samsung is reported to unveil the Galaxy S8 on March 29 with the release date to follow on April 21. Then rumors say the tech giant will focus next on the Galaxy Note 8. But a new report claimed a bigger project is in the offing for the Asian tech giant - a foldable flagship smartphone.

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The innovative device might just be the reason for smartphone users to consider skipping any of the GS8 or the Note 8 as reports from South Korea indicate that a prototype of Samsung's foldable phone, which will make use of a flexible OLED display, will appear as early as the third quarter of 2017.

The plan, according to Korean news site ETNews, is for "Samsung Electronics and Samsung Display have set a goal of releasing prototype of foldable Smartphone in this third quarter in order to verify quality of foldable Smartphone by producing thousands of prototypes." And if the projections will prove favorable, the Galaxy will then proceed to the commercial stage of the foldable device.

ETNews is estimating that wholesale assembly will happen next year. "When prototypes are produced during third quarter, it is likely that official mass-production will take place in 2018," the report said.

In recent years, Samsung has showcased the possibility of coming up with a mobile device that will boast of flexible display, pointing to many possibilities and one of them is a foldable phone. The same report said a small number of foldable phones have been demoed privately by Samsung during the MWC 2017 event in Barcelona, Spain.

And the likelihood is the same will happen in the next big gadget trade show scheduled this year, which BGR said could be the IFA 2017 in Berlin. The gathering is set in early September.

The same event has been used by Samsung in the past as launch pad for its Galaxy Note flagship phablet series, and the same is likely to happen for the company's rumored Galaxy Note 8 2017 push. But this year, Samsung's foldable smartphone might just steal the thunder off the Note 8.

It remains unclear if Samsung's foldable smartphone will run on Android, the same platform that powers the Galaxy mobile devices.