Samsung Electronics’ next flagship smartphone, tentatively dubbed Galaxy S8, is likely to come with a 5.5-inch, 4K UHD display, a market research firm said Wednesday.

The Korean tech giant would become the first smartphone-maker to pack 4K resolution into its flagship smartphone, even though Sony last year released the Z5 Premium with such a panel. 

“Samsung Display showcased a 5.5 ultra-high definition 4K display with a pixel density of 806 ppi for virtual reality devices at the Society for Information Display, a display trade show, in California in March,” said an official of UBI Research.

“Considering various factors including the production yield rate for the next-generation display expected to improve in the coming months, the 5.5-inch AMOLED will be deployed in the next Galaxy smartphone, presumably, named the S8.”

According to the research firm, the first Galaxy smartphone model, released in March 2010, featured a 4-inch active-matrix organic light-emitting diode display. AMOLED is a type of the OLED panel that Samsung utilizes for its smartphone.

The display size of the Galaxy lineup increased by around 30 percent to 5.5 inches since the first Galaxy model, according to the report released by Ubiresearch, a Seoul-based market research firm, on Wednesday.

The picture resolution of the Galaxy lineup has improved 9.6 times from wide VGA (480X800) to QHD (1440X2560).

The Galaxy S7 edge released in March 2016 sports a 5.5-inch curved AMOLED display which boasts the QHD display resolution.

The market research firm forecast that smartphones with a 5-inch display or larger will take up around 71 percent of the entire smartphone lineup of the firm, and the upward trend in terms of picture resolution and display size will pick up pace.

Samsung has introduced new displays with better picture quality every two years -- a HD display for the S3, a full HD display for the S4 and S5, and a QHD for the S6 and S7.

The 4K display is considered important especially in the VR sector as major smartphone firms and VR gadget makers need to provide better VR experience for users than now.

Many VR headsets, including the Samsung Gear VR, need to be paired with smartphones.

By Kim Young-won (wone0102@heraldcorp.com)