Why Apple's foldable entry could reshape a market still finding its footing

Despite seven years and steady improvements, foldable smartphones remain a tiny slice of the overall smartphone market. With Apple set to enter the segment this month, that could finally change

Foldable smartphones have been around for seven years now. Yet, the category has remained a niche corner of the overall smartphone market for most of its existence, held back by high prices, software that has not kept pace with the hardware, and a lineup split between book-style and flip-style designs, each with its own compromises. With new wide-format designs, and Apple reportedly planning to enter the market this month, can this pull foldable devices out of niche territory?

A niche category, seven years in

Samsung was among the first to launch a foldable smartphone in 2019, when the category shipped roughly 1.3 million units globally, just 0.09 per cent of the total global smartphone market volume, according to market research firm Market Reports World.

 

 

It crossed the 10 million mark only in 2022, with the segment expanding to roughly 13.1 million units, a 1.10 per cent share of the 1.20 billion smartphones shipped that year, based on International Data Corporation (IDC) Mobile Tracker data.

 

Last year, in 2025, the segment grew to 18.2 million units globally, but this still accounted for only 1.48 per cent of the 1.23 billion smartphones shipped worldwide, according to Omdia.

How flip phones brought the price down

Price has been one of the biggest reasons foldable device have stayed niche, and this is precisely why companies turned to a new form factor: flip phones. Motorola was the first to launch a flip-style foldable, the Motorola Razr in 2020, priced at $1,499 in the US. For comparison, Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold 2, the successor to the original book-style foldable, launched the same year at $1,999.

The year 2021 changed the scene completely. It saw the biggest year-over-year jump in global foldable smartphone shipments. Samsung itself said 2021 saw a 300 per cent jump from 2020, while Omdia reported shipments reaching 9 million units, up 309 per cent year-on-year.

 

What happened in 2021 is worth examining closely. Until then, foldables were ultra-luxury devices. That year, pricing reached a tipping point when the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 3 broke the psychological price barrier by launching at $999, bringing a foldable into the same price bracket as standard flagship smartphones.

 

Omdia reported that with 4.6 million shipments, the Galaxy Z Flip 3 5G became the world's largest foldable smartphone model that year, accounting for 52 per cent of the entire foldable smartphone market in 2021.

 

The Flip 3’s pricing was not the only reason for the growth.

 

In the second half of 2021, Samsung Display began selling its proprietary flexible UTG displays to third-party manufacturers. This allowed rivals such as Xiaomi and Oppo to launch their own foldable smartphones the same year, while others like Vivo entered the market the following year.

 

The same period also saw leaps in durability, with the Galaxy Z Fold 3 and Z Flip 3 becoming the first water-resistant foldable devices to carry an IPX8 rating.

The swing back to book-style foldables

While flip phones drove the first wave of foldable adoption, consumers and manufacturers alike have since been shifting back to the fold-style design.

 

According to Counterpoint data, flip-style foldable phones accounted for 61 per cent of foldable smartphone shipments in 2021. But book-style foldable phones started dominating again from 2024, when they accounted for 51 per cent of total foldable shipments. In 2025, book-style foldable devices accounted for 52 per cent of total shipments, and Counterpoint forecasts this share could reach 65 per cent in 2026.

The shift away from flip-style, or clamshell, foldable devices toward book-style ones comes down to consumers realising that flip phones don't actually give you any extra screen space, they simply fold a standard smartphone in half.

 

Counterpoint has said book-style phones excel at running multiple apps side by side, and as advanced AI assistants take over more of the smartphone experience, having a larger canvas to handle background workflows, cross-app task execution and side-by-side data references has made the book-style format far more practical.

 

Flip phones, meanwhile, must stay incredibly thin and light to justify their compact design, forcing manufacturers into hardware trade-offs on battery, cameras, thermal management and more.

The hardware has improved, but growth hasn't followed

That isn't to say the category hasn't improved overall. Foldable smartphones have gotten thinner, closing in on the thickness of a traditional smartphone. The Galaxy Z Fold 1 in 2019 measured 17.1mm when folded; the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra in 2026 measures 8.9mm.

 

Batteries have improved too. The original Samsung Galaxy Fold used a dual-battery setup with a combined capacity of 4,380mAh, while newer foldable phones such as the Oppo Find N6 and Vivo X Fold 5 now come with 6,000mAh batteries.

 

The display crease, long one of the most annoying parts of using a foldable, has also reduced over the years. Oppo, launching the Find N6 earlier this year, said its "Zero-Feel Crease" engineering reduces hinge height variance from the industry-standard 0.2mm to just 0.05mm, a 75 per cent reduction.

 

Durability has improved as well, with better hinge designs and higher dust and water resistance across the board.

 

Yet none of these improvements have been enough to drive real growth in the foldable market.

 

As per Omdia, foldable smartphone shipments grew just 12 per cent year-on-year in 2024 and only 6 per cent in 2025, a clear stagnation.

Samsung's Z8 split

The segment may have needed another Flip 3-like moment, and it may already be underway. Samsung recently split its book-style foldable lineup into two forms. The Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra effectively succeeds the Z Fold 7 with a taller screen, while the Galaxy Z Fold 8 offers a wider, shorter cover screen that opens up to a wider display on the inside as well. The design feels unconventional, but the bigger screen offers a better content-watching experience with less negative space, and the phone is more pocketable when folded, in effect bridging the gap between a traditional book-style foldable and a flip-style compact form.

 

Early signs suggest this bet is paying off.

 

In Samsung's home market, South Korea, pre-orders for the Z8 series, comprising the Fold 8, Fold 8 Ultra and the Z Flip 8, reached 1.44 million units in just one week, according to Korea Economic News, with the Fold 8 accounting for about 70 per cent of these orders. A Forbes report, citing South Korea's ET News, said Samsung has decided to produce 1 million additional Galaxy Z Fold 8 units, on top of an original production plan of 2.8 million units that was already the largest allocation in the Z Fold 8 series lineup.

 

The report also forecast that the Galaxy Z Fold 8 alone will account for over 60 per cent of Samsung's entire foldable output this year.

 

In India, Samsung said the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra, Galaxy Z Fold 8 and Galaxy Z Flip 8 saw an overwhelming response, securing over 271,000 pre-orders within 72 hours of their July 22 launch. The previous generation, the Galaxy Z Fold 7 and Galaxy Z Flip 7, had taken 15 days to hit a similar number of pre-orders.

More wide foldables

Samsung is not alone in pushing this form factor. Xiaomi has unveiled its Fold 18 with a similar design, and Apple will likely launch its first foldable iPhone, at its September 9 event, carrying dimensions similar to the Galaxy Z Fold 8.

 

Omdia has said the emerging wide-format book-type foldable design is projected to support future growth in the category, while demand for flip-type devices continues to weaken. The market research firm also said that leading vendors have already raised production targets for wide-format foldable smartphones for 2026, and more Android brands are expected to adopt similar designs in 2027.

Apple enters the picture

Apple's entry could well mark a turning point for the category. IDC's 2026 smartphone market forecast identifies foldable devices as the only segment expected to register growth this year, even as component cost inflation eats into overall smartphone market growth. The category is forecast to grow 12.6 per cent in 2026 to 22.9 million units, then accelerate to 18 per cent growth in 2027, reaching roughly 27 million units, and IDC attributes this growth directly to Apple's possible entry into the category in the second half of this year.

 

"Apple's entry into the foldable market has done more than reignite growth in a category that was losing momentum. It has fundamentally altered the market's trajectory. Without Apple, foldable shipments would have declined at a double-digit rate year over year. We forecast Apple will ship more than 17 million foldable iPhones by 2027, capturing roughly 40 per cent of the global foldables market. With an average selling price exceeding $2,550, Apple is expected to generate more than $45.7 billion in value and account for over half of the category's total value," said Nabila Popal, Senior Research Director, IDC Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker.

 

Counterpoint offers a similar prediction from the supply chain side.

 

In July, the firm said the foldable smartphone display panel market is set to rebound from its 2025 adjustment phase in 2026, with shipments forecast to grow around 24 per cent year-on-year and revenues around 48 per cent year-on-year, driven not just by volume recovery but by Apple's entry and a richer mix of premium in-fold products.

 

Counterpoint added that Apple will be the key variable reshaping the market structure in 2026, with its first foldable iPhone expected to drive panel procurement in the second half of the year and increase the importance of SDC, premium in-fold panels and high-value technologies.

Where Apple's late entry could help

Beyond the market numbers, Apple's entry into the segment could also help solve some of the persistent problems foldable devices have faced. Despite several generations of devices and now a handful of wide-style foldable phones, software optimisation remains a major issue.

 

Google has been pushing more foldable-friendly updates with each Android iteration, but most foldable devices still run into software hiccups, whether it's apps not optimised for the form factor or the absence of well-optimised cross-app features that take full advantage of the larger screen.

 

Manufacturers have tried to address this themselves, such as the open canvas system on the OnePlus Open, which allowed multiple apps to run in a split-screen setup with gesture-based controls. But OnePlus didn't follow up with a second-generation foldable, and that system died out with it.

 

Apple's advantage here is that, unlike most Android brands, it controls almost the entire stack of an iPhone, from chip to hardware to operating system. That gives it the opportunity to fine-tune the foldable experience so it doesn't feel like a slab-phone interface stretched onto a bigger screen.

 

A Bloomberg report suggesting the foldable iPhone might use an iPad-like app layout system points in that direction.

 

On the hardware side, being late to the category also works in Apple's favour, giving it access to a supply chain already accustomed to making foldable smartphone components, leaving less room for errors.