US Gen Z doesn't want a Galaxy, and the Z Flip 8 won't change that

Gen Z in the United States doesn't really want a Galaxy, and Samsung knows it. The Galaxy Z Flip series could have been the answer to that problem, but it didn't really work either.

The foldable had a lot of things going for it. Its clamshell form factor leveraged nostalgia, the device was aesthetically pleasing if not entirely fashionable, and had just the right amount of novelty to bring people over. The cover screen has also increasingly been iterated to generate the kind of social-first interaction Gen Z expects from technology.

Six years later, not much has changed, and the Galaxy Z Flip 8 is the most expensive response to that problem the company has ever shipped. The US smartphone loyalty data for users under 25 is blunt. A fall 2025 survey of 10,969 teens with the average age of 15.7 years conducted by Piper Sandler found that 87% of teens own an iPhone.

This is the generation that grew up with iMessage as the social layer of their friendships. The generation that experienced the green bubble as a form of social exclusion before they were old enough to articulate it as such. One that has never owned a phone not made by Apple in many cases.

Samsung understands that the bar is impossibly high to clear. The latest attempt with the Galaxy Z Flip 8, priced starting at $1,199, is optimistic, given that it sits $100 above the base iPhone 17 Pro and is on par with the base iPhone 17 Pro Max. Can the cover screen's expanded capabilities, fresh new colors, and a bit of nip and tuck for the frame close the gap?

Whether it works is a different question from whether Samsung is trying. They are trying, harder than at any point in the Flip's history, to make a Galaxy phone that a Gen Z iPhone user picks up at a carrier store and may be considers buying it.

The spec sheet is almost beside the point, even though that just might be a damning indictment of this phone's value proposition. The Galaxy Z Flip 8 is a $100 increase over the Galaxy Z Flip 7 with nothing much to show for it.

For that extra $100, buyers get a thinner and lighter body, a Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset in the US, and a handful of new cover-screen tricks. Among the specs that have remained unchanged are the cameras and the charging speed.

What used to differentiate the Flip pitch to a skeptical iPhone owner, that it was the accessible, playful alternative and not another four-figure commitment, got a little less true this year when Samsung needed it to get more true.

US Gen Z's preference for the iPhone has remained unchanged despite years of sustained and genuine efforts by all Android manufacturers, not just Samsung, to move the needle. The same survey from 2024 put iPhone ownership among teens at 85%. The most recent survey has shown that the preference has only grown.

What's abundantly clear now that one of the most tech-forward generations in the United States is inexplicably locked into the Apple ecosystem. Brand preference that builds in the early years becomes progressively harder to disturb in the later years. You can't simply write that off as a phase.

Samsung still doesn't have the pull to convert someone who has only ever wanted an iPhone. One can only imagine how difficult this mission would become once Apple enters the foldable segment. Its first attempt is a passport-style foldable that would rival the Galaxy Z Fold 8, but it's not entirely outside the realm of possibility that Apple could make a Galaxy Z Flip rival in the future.

If and when that happens, the nostalgia and novelty factors that currently work in the Galaxy Z Flip's favor will largely be conceded as well.

On merits, the Galaxy Z Flip 8 isn't a bad phone. It's perhaps one of the best clamshell foldables on the market and the lack of any serious competition only works in its favor. The only thing working against it is that it's unable to do what Samsung needs it to do.