Samsung Rules Out Affordable Foldable Smartphones: Insights on Future Plans and Market Trends

Updated on 23/10/2024

If you’ve been looking for an affordable Samsung smartphone with a tablet-style design, unfortunately we have some bad news for you. In an interview with SisaJournal, a representative of the company said that nothing of the kind is currently planned. He called the new Galaxy Z Fold Special Edition a flagship product that should expand the package and offer more choice to those interested, but there is no cheaper “folded” on the menu. Considering the stagnant sales, it is certainly a shame, but let’s add that most of the sales of folding models are represented by flexible clamshells, which are an order of magnitude cheaper, not Fold phones .

Original information as of 10/22/2024

Samsung was at the forefront of phones with flexible displays and is still heavily involved in providing flexible panels to many other manufacturers. Now, however, Samsung has some problems, or rather its Samsung Display division in particular, with year-on-year deliveries falling as much as 10% to around 12 million panels. However, the initial optimistic estimates spoke of even 20 million panels.

The main reason for the decline is the lack of interest in this year’s new Galaxy Z Fold6 and Galaxy Z Flip6. They were expected to deliver between 8 and 10 million units by the end of this year. But the truth will be less, current estimates speak of 7 to 8 million units delivered.

Already for the next year, however, Samsung plans to increase delivery again, several steps should lead to this. First, the South Korean manufacturer expects continued interest from other manufacturers in flexible panels. In addition, it plans to focus on the booming Chinese market, where it will introduce special models designed just for China. There is also Samsung’s improved double loop in the game, which could be a kind of competition with the only similar phone so far in the form of the Huawei Mate XT.

We could also expect a new representative from the Flip series, which should be included among the most affordable models. Although the manufacturer would not make much money on such a model, it would increase the sale of flexible panels and could improve their numbers in general. We can only hope that Samsung’s offer will change in an interesting way in the next year, which will only benefit the user.