The first foldable phone launched almost five years ago, but Samsung never had any competition until 2023.
Samsung started selling the first foldable phones in 2019, and almost five years later, foldables only make up about 1% of the smartphone market, and almost all of them are made by Samsung. The Korean tech giant was the undisputed leader and then 2023 rolled around. Google released the Pixel Fold, a capable but toasty foldable to rival Samsung. Then OnePlus released its first foldable, and the OnePlus Open is arguably a better piece of hardware than the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5. Motorola has also revived its clamshell Razr line.
But don’t weep for Samsung; competition is what foldables need to be viable.
Samsung is still leading the way in this segment, but that could change very soon. For five years, Samsung got to set the tone and, with no meaningful competition, the shortcomings of the Z Fold and Z Flip series just became the nature of foldables: clunky, heavy, and middling battery life, with a display crease as deep as the Grand Canyon.
Samsung is by far the largest Android brand in the world, and that gives it a great deal of power, even when dealing with Google. The company’s foldable exploration was one of the factors that led Google to re-engineer Android for large displays, starting with the release of Android 12L midway through the Android 12 lifecycle. These features benefit all foldables, but Samsung has used them to particularly great effect. The Korean giant’s robust engineering and manufacturing operations gave it an early lead in developing foldable hardware, too, but innovation has been slow. The latest Samsung foldables look almost the same as the ones it released years ago, which themselves look very similar to the ones we saw in 2021.
With no competition, Samsung was able to rest on its laurels. After all, foldable sales were increasing year over year, so why re-engineer the phone to compete with nothing? Instead, we got small generational improvements, like the flat-closing hinge this year or water resistance with the Z Fold 3.
