Foldable phones are becoming more and more popular. The best evidence is the fact that almost all major manufacturers have at least one such device in their portfolio. This was not the case a year or two ago. Samsung foldables are the most popular at the moment, and they will probably remain for some time.
Four years after Samsung introduced the first Galaxy Fold, the folding technology evolved and also matured to some extent. For example, last year’s models received an IP water resistance certification, which is a great improvement compared to previous generations. They still need to work on dust resistance, which is a little bit harder to achieve. Although many companies also have launched several generations of their foldable, Samsung is still the leader in this market segment.
Samsung foldables will boost sales this year
In the meantime, TM Roh, Samsung’s mobile division CEO stated that the company sold almost 10 million Samsung foldables last year. These deliveries include Galaxy Z Flip4 and Galaxy Z Fold4, at a 60/40 ratio.
After the announcement of the next generation of Samsung foldables, i.e. Galaxy Z Flip5 and Galaxy Z Fold5 models, Samsung expects their sales to increase by 50% compared to their predecessors, Roth said. This would mean that the sales target is about 15 million units of these two devices.
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Some analysts, such as Trendforce, have already predicted that 18 million folding devices will be shipped worldwide this year. Furthermore, IDC suggests that this number will be bigger than 20 million because the folding technology is improving. If these optimistic forecasts come true, it means that Samsung will hold three-quarters of the world’s foldables market share.
TM Roth also expects that this year, Galaxy Z Flip5 will be selling better than Galaxy Z Fold 5, unlike last year’s models, which have been selling evenly. He didn’t mention any reason for that, but we assume that the major reason is the price.
The latter is priced just a little bit under 2000 euros in the EU, which is a lot of money for a phone. Flip5 is cheaper, and its better sales could be self-explanatory. On the other hand, there is one more reason for this Samsung foldable to achieve different sales numbers. The Flip’s advantage over Fold is that it got a quite bigger and therefore more usable cover screen. For Fold5, we can’t say the same.
Anyway, both phones ow have better construction, and they are flat in the folded state, which was not the case with last year’s models.
