Samsung doubling down on familiar-looking foldables, supplier reveals

Samsung is definitely doubling down on foldable smartphones this year, one of its long-time suppliers revealed. With that said, the tech giant is likely to spend the majority of 2021 refining its existing foldable device concepts with the Galaxy Z Flip 2 and Galaxy Z Fold 3. That's according to Korean component manufacturer S-Connect whose executives were quite forthcoming about Samsung's plans during their latest quarterly earnings call held earlier today.

E.g., S-Connect management was happy to announce that Samsung approved their hinge designs for both the Galaxy Z Fold 3 and Galaxy Z Flip 2. The company confirmed it's on schedule to start mass producing them in the second half of the year.

Will Samsung succeed at making foldable mainstream within a few years?

We can expect the Galaxy Tab S8 and Galaxy Tab S8+ to debut around that same time, as well, as per the same source. Samsung's premium Android tablets are typically refreshed in August, and it seems we're in for another late-summer launch in 2021.

This testimony from Samsung's supply chain lines up with previous credible reports on the company's near-term foldable strategy. Namely, we're still expecting no fewer than four new foldable Galaxy devices this year. But truly novel form factors such as stretchable smartphones aren't planned to launch before 2022. Speaking of things that likely won't be happening this year, after all, S-Connect made no mention of the Galaxy Z Flip Lite.

In the meantime, Samsung's partner expects the foldable smartphone market to reach 5.5 million sold units this year, effectively doubling compared to 2020. More importantly, Samsung is well-positioned to remain at the forefront of this emerging, high-margin niche.