According to Barclays analysts, Samsung will soon pick a supplier for metal cases suggesting that these will be used in future flagship smartphones.

The best bet points to the Catcher, a Taiwanese company that is already doing cases for the HTC One, Apple's iPad Mini as well as the MacBook Air and analysts from Barclays are suggesting that the company will receive orders from Samsung in the first half of 2014. Samsung is most likely targeting to get the metal shell ready for its next Galaxy S5 smartphone flagship and although the decision is still on the table, analysts are suggesting that there will be at least one smartphone with metal shell next year.

Samsung is still quite happy with the plastic back and most buyers would rather have a removable and cheaper to replace back on the smartphone with access to the battery and microSD slot than a full metal uni-body that simply just looks and feels better.

It is still not clear which smartphone from Samsung could end up to be the first with all-metal design as it has a wide range of devices covering all market segments to choose from.

Source: Taipeitimes.com.