Samsung continues to sell more Galaxy Z Fold phones despite rising competition

In 2019, Samsung launched the Galaxy Fold, the world's first mass-market smartphone with a book-style foldable display. Since then, it has been offering the best devices in the segment. As such they are sold in high numbers and the company has been dominating the market.

However, in recent years, other brands have also launched competent foldable phones, which give a tough fight to the Galaxy Z Fold-series devices. Well, a new market research reveals that despite rising competition, Samsung continues to sell more Galaxy Z Fold series phones every year and dominates the market.

Counterpoint Research has published an analysis on the sales of smartphones with book-style foldable displays in Europe. In 2022, when Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold 4 was the only device in the segment offering high-end specifications or was worth purchasing, the brand had a 98% share in the foldable phone market.

In 2023, as Google and Honor launched the Pixel Fold and the Magic V2, the South Korean tech giant's market share dropped to 73%. In 2024, with the American and Chinese brands launching new versions of their foldables, Samsung's market share dipped to 50%.

Despite a significant drop in the market share, Samsung sold 10% more Galaxy Z Fold series phones in 2024 compared to the year before, partly because the book-style foldable phone market expanded immensely. If the company could achieve these results with the Galaxy Z Fold 6, a subtle upgrade over its predecessor, we wonder what it can achieve with the Galaxy Z Fold 7, a phone that brings massive upgrades over last year’s models. In fact, the research firm says that the Galaxy Z Fold 7 is the most popular book-style foldable smartphone to date.

In 2026, Apple is expected to launch the first iPhone with a foldable display. According to Counterpoint Research, considering that the Cupertino-based tech giant has a lot of loyal users that spend money on high-end devices, the foldable iPhone will be adopted quickly.

That will result in a sharp rise in the popularity, interest, and sales of foldable smartphones. The research firm says that the sales of book-style foldable phones will grow from around 1.5 million units in 2025 to 4 million units by the end of 2028. Will that benefit Samsung? Well, only time will tell.