Nearly two decades after Apple created the modern smartphone market, the iPhone is about to undergo its biggest transformation ever. It’s going foldable.
If Apple executives feel any trepidation about altering the iPhone’s time-tested design, they may find reassurance from their top competitor: Samsung. The Korean electronics company has been selling foldable smartphones for seven years, with the latest Z Fold 8 and Z Flip 8 family of devices, which launched in July.
Sales of Samsung’s new foldables are up 30% by volume year over year, the company tells Fortune exclusively. That’s only one month’s worth of data, but it comes on the back of roughly 30% growth in foldables last year, and despite the new models’ higher prices because of memory costs. “The response to foldables has been tremendous,” says Samsung senior executive Dave Das in an interview with Fortune.
According to Das, executive vice president, mobile experience business at Samsung Electronics America, foldable phones have a consumer appeal that’s driving sales among new, fold-curious users and causing existing foldable converts to upgrade more frequently. The demand and market dynamics are reminiscent of the early days of smartphones, when each year’s new slate of models generated a wave of buzz—and upgrades.
The innovation happening with each new generation of foldable phones is much more tangible than it is with traditional smartphones, says Das. “If you look at the bar-type form factor, it’s just far less visible to a consumer what has changed year over year,” he says. “Whereas with foldables you can clearly see how much thinner, how much lighter … Physically, at first glance, you can tell: ‘Oh, this is different from the one I have that’s two years older, or one year older.’”
What’s more, says Das, the number of new Samsung customers who previously owned a smartphone made by a competitor is 25% higher with foldables than with its traditional bar-type phones. A fair number of these customers are even switching to an Android-based device, he says, suggesting that Apple users are making the leap in order to have a foldable phone. “It becomes something that helps consumers overcome their concerns or even fears about switching operating systems,” he says.
Foldable phones open and close like a book, revealing an inside screen that essentially doubles in size, making it an ideal display for watching movies or doing work. When the device is closed, a smaller exterior screen on the front cover provides quick access to key apps and features. The phones, made by companies including Samsung, Motorola, Huawei, and Google, vary in size, with inside screens ranging from five to eight-plus inches.
While the majority of Samsung’s smartphone sales are still traditional bar-type devices such as its Galaxy S26, the foldable category is growing at a “much much faster rate,” and is now a significant enough portion of sales that Das says they are considered a “mainstream” part of the business. Still, with Samsung’s foldables starting at $1,200 and its high-end model priced at $2,100—and with Apple’s foldable expected to cost at least $2,100— foldables are clearly a premium product. According to Counterpoint Research, foldable phones represented less than 2% of the global smartphone market by unit sales last year, though that number is expected to grow in the coming years, particularly with Apple’s entry into the market.
The ‘passport’ fight
Samsung was early to the foldable game, launching the Galaxy Fold in 2019. As the pioneer in the category, Samsung went through a sometimes bumpy, and very public, learning process. Its first foldable model suffered from technical problems with the hinge mechanism and with the foldable screen itself, earning it some brutal reviews. In the years since, however, the company has made great strides. Reviews of the latest generation of Samsung phones describe the crease as barely noticeable and praise the phone’s overall build and durability.
“We’ve now gotten to the point where the only limitation on how thin we’re making these devices is actually the USB-C port,” Das says. That earned experience is something Samsung is banking on as Apple enters the market. Samsung was the top seller of foldable phones in 2025, with 40% global market share, according to Counterpoint Research, followed by Huawei, with 30% share.
In July, Samsung launched new versions of its two existing foldables and introduced a new model with dimensions similar to a passport’s. That device will be the closest competitor to Apple’s forthcoming foldable “iPhone Ultra,” whose dimensions will reportedly also be similar to a passport’s.
While Samsung’s passport-style foldable has only been on sale for about one month, early indications are that it’s a hit with consumers.
According to Das, 40% of the company’s foldable sales are for the new passport-style Galaxy Z Fold 8 device, and 40% of sales are for the high-end Z Fold 8 Ultra. The latter model is being purchased by users for productivity tasks, while the passport-style Fold 8 is getting traction with users interested in using it for “content consumption” like watching videos. (Samsung’s $1,200 Z Flip 8, a clamshell-style foldable aimed at consumers primarily interested in capturing videos and photos, accounts for the remaining 20% of sales.)
“Over the last seven years we’ve learned a lot about what consumers want and how they’re using the device,” Das says. “You’ve got a very distinct productivity-oriented consumer; you’ve got a distinct content consumption consumer; and then you’ve got one who is about content capture.”
For Apple, which generates roughly half its revenue from the iPhone, getting consumers to upgrade is critical. While iPhone sales increased an impressive 21% in the most recent quarter, the business has experienced significant slowdowns in recent years, with sales even declining in some quarters. Wednesday’s launch of the new iPhone models—which will also reportedly include new versions of traditional bar-type iPhones—comes as John Ternus begins his tenure as CEO, replacing Tim Cook.
Ternus’s longtime experience as a hardware guy makes him well suited to oversee the launch of a completely new iPhone form factor with an inherently complex design. The question is whether Apple will need to go through the same learning curve as Samsung, or if its late entry into the market means that it will benefit from some of the learnings of its predecessor.
Either way, Samsung’s Das says he’s ready for the competition: “Once consumers compare the two products they will clearly see the advantages that Samsung has built up based on our years of experience and IP.”
