According to the latest research from Strategy Analytics, global foldable smartphone shipments will grow from under 1 million units in 2019 to 100 million by 2025. Samsung, Huawei and others lead the way. High pricing, low display-yields and questionable durability are holding back the foldables market today, but those problems will be solved in the long-term.
Ville-Petteri Ukonaho, Associate Director at Strategy Analytics, said in a statement, “We forecast global foldable smartphone shipments will grow strongly from under 1 million units in 2019 to 100 million by 2025. Foldables will be the fastest-growing segment of the premium smartphone market for the next decade.”
Neil Mawston, Executive Director at Strategy Analytics, added, “Foldables pack a big screen into a small design. Consumers can surf rich content, like video, on a large display, and then fold the device away neatly into a pocket or bag.”
Ken Hyers, Director at Strategy Analytics, added, “Samsung was the world’s number one foldable smartphone vendor in 2019, followed by Huawei in second place. Samsung is top in Western regions, like the US, while Huawei is focusing on its home market of China. Rival brands, such as Motorola and TCL, will deliver their own new models in 2020 and look to grab a slice of the foldables pie. By 2025, every major player should have a foldables portfolio, including Apple.”
Ville-Petteri Ukonaho, Associate Director at Strategy Analytics, added, “For now, the foldables industry has several hurdles to overcome, including very high pricing, low yields of bendable displays, and questionable durability about whether the hinges or screens will last for more than a few months. However, the technical problems for foldables are not unsolvable, and we expect the issues to be addressed in the coming years.”
The full report, Foldables to Hit 100 Million by 2025, is published by the Strategy Analytics Emerging Device Technologies (EDT) service, details of which can be found here.
MacDailyNews Take: When Apple does a foldable iPhone, then folding phones will have been done right. That’s when foldable smartphone shipments will really take off!
Apple wasn’t first with fingerprint recognition, they were the first to do it right with Touch ID. Apple wasn’t first with facial recognition, they were the first to do it right with Face ID. Apple wasn’t first with contactless payments, they were the first to do it right with Apple Pay. — MacDailyNews, February 27, 2019
If and when Apple debuts a foldable iPhone, they’ll be showing the world how it should be done and what to copy going forward. As usual. — MacDailyNews, February 27, 2019
As with fingerprint and facial recognition, when Apple debuts a foldable iPhone, then foldable smartphones will have been done right. — MacDailyNews, January 17, 2019
We’ll see a mess of weird attempts before Apple shows how it’s to be done, as usual. — MacDailyNews, January 23, 2019
Only happens if Apple Inc. produce a foldable iPhone that works, otherwise they all go to landfill!!
Your objectivity is truly exemplary!
I never understood why anyone wanted folding phones. It just added an unnecessary step of having to flip the thing open and made one handed operation more difficult while providing no benefits.
It becomes 1/2 the size! It fits in your pocket! I never understood the gigantic heavy glass slab!
Assuming the unfolded phone has the same screen area, by folding it in half, you don’t decrease the amount of glass used. You just end up with two pieces of glass instead of one.
Also, adding a hinge also adds an extra potential point of failure.
A foldable phone is a less than average phone, then when you open it, it’s a less than average tablet . . . and if you bought an iPhone and an iPad separately, they would cost less than a foldable phone . . . but hey, we predict 100 million of these will be sold, because . . .
The physics of materials fatigue didn’t stop because Samsung says so, and if I have to choose between the laws of physics and analysts projections… well it’s obvious.
Completely agree. No such thing as magic.