Apple Enters the Foldable Phone Race
Samsung is not alone at being a big player in the foldable phone segment anymore. The iPhone Duo is a new foldable iPhone that Apple claims is the first in a new category that has been defined for years by Samsung and Chinese manufacturers such as Huawei, with an initial price tag of $1999. With the launch, foldables are going from being an experiment to a mainstream contest—and Samsung is moving quickly.
Samsung's Foldable Phones Get a Publicity Push
By the time Apple made its announcement, Samsung had hit the ground running with a worldwide publicity push for its foldable offerings. Billboards were installed in Seoul, Tokyo and London with slogans such as "Welcome to Foldables" and "The World's Lightest Fold" to highlight the compact and light design of the Galaxy Z Fold 8. Samsung also shared the specifics of its multi-year engineering project on the website to make its foldable phones lighter, a not-so-subtle reminder that it has been working on the design since 2019.
The tone turned harsher on social media platforms, with Samsung launching a barrage of jibes at Apple's latest offering, drawing a distinction between it and a true innovation, merely “familiar hardware in a new box.”
Pricing Puts the Two Foldable Phones Close Together
It is here that the comparison becomes interesting in the case of price. The iPhone Duo's price tag is $1,999, just over $100 higher than the Galaxy Z Fold 8's pricing of $1,899 and based on Google's Gemini AI. One of the more memorable aspects of Apple's approach, which kept the iPhone Duo just below the $2,000 price, was that it placed it close enough to Samsung's flagship to allow direct comparison, but not so close as to be viewed as a high-end oddball, according to Liz Lee, associate director at Counterpoint.
They have a similar "passport-style" folding design, and Apple is reportedly utilizing the foldable display supply chain that it has helped build, such as foldable panels from Samsung Display.
What the Foldable Market Share Split Could Look Like
Apple is expected to capture approximately quarter of the foldable phone market this year, leveling up to Samsung's 38% share, according to Counterpoint. It would be a significant change for Samsung, which dominated the foldable smartphone market since making the first mass-market foldable phone available in 2019, but after early frustrations with durability issues that caused the devices to be late to market. Samsung has since launched eight generations of foldable phones, and has been fighting back against the competition from Huawei and other Chinese brands.
Samsung's odds of winning go further than a head start, analysts say. It has been in production for years, distributed to customers worldwide and is well-known in the foldable category, which makes it a buffer as Apple exerts pressure. Nonetheless, Lee believes the move by Apple will have the greatest effect on Samsung's market share.
Apple's Timing Strategy for Foldable Phones
In addressing the current crop of foldable phones, Apple's new CEO John Ternus said that they "feel like two phones awkwardly stuck together," indicating how Apple will differentiate its version. CCS Insight's chief analyst Ben Wood said Apple was not the first to get into the market, but rather entered it when the underlying technology has ready.
That's now true of foldable phones. Samsung created the category, weathered the early technical jitters and created the supply chain. Apple is coming when screens, hinges, and consumers are ready, and expects to carve out a decent share of market from a six-year-old Samsung effort.
