Executive summary
Foldable phones have moved from laboratory novelty to a mainstream premium category. Early pioneers exposed the engineering challenges; today’s leaders have turned those lessons into mass-market products. Whether foldables become a dominant smartphone form factor will hinge on cost, durability, and real-world software value. For now, they sit squarely in the premium segment — compelling for power users and specific professional use cases, but unlikely to fully replace the traditional slab in the near term.
1. Origins: from FlexPai to viable products
The first consumer foldable, Royole’s FlexPai (October 2018), proved flexible-display hardware could ship to customers. It combined a 7.8-inch flexible screen with an outward-fold design but delivered disappointing sales. Production immaturity, limited app compatibility, and weak brand recognition constrained adoption. The FlexPai’s value was not commercial dominance but demonstration: flexible screens were practical. Samsung and Huawei’s 2019 launches then moved foldables from proof-of-concept to an investible product category.
2. Market snapshot (early 2025): leaders and challengers
By early 2025 the foldable segment had consolidated around a few major players while attracting differentiated entrants:
- Samsung: Largest global share (~45%), driven by Galaxy Z Fold and Z Flip lines. Samsung reported roughly 14.2 million foldable shipments in 2024; Flip-style vertical folds represented about 60% of those units.
- Huawei: Dominant in China (over 50% share) with the Mate X family, leveraging Kirin chips and features such as BeiDou satellite support. Shipments in 2024 were approximately 6.8 million.
- Honor: Rapid growth via the Magic V series and lightweight hinge engineering, pushing its global share toward the high teens.
- Others: Xiaomi (MIX Fold) targets value-minded buyers; OPPO (Find N) emphasizes hinge precision; Motorola’s Razr appeals through nostalgic design in North America.
Industry data put global foldable shipments above 32 million in 2024 — a ~41% year-over-year increase — representing roughly 2.8% of total smartphone shipments, with projected growth into 2025.
3. Engineering bottlenecks that still matter
Three technical domains determine performance, cost, and consumer confidence:
- Hinges and mechanical engineering. Contemporary hinges (often teardrop-style) must balance tactile feel, crease minimization, and environmental sealing. Hinge assemblies can contain hundreds of precision parts requiring micrometer-level tolerances.
- Flexible displays and cover materials. Ultra-thin glass (UTG) has become widespread, but issues such as fatigue micro-cracks and reduced light transmission after repeated folding persist. Display engineers continue to target meaningful reductions in crease depth for next-generation panels.
- Software and ecosystem optimization. Many apps remain poorly adapted to dual-mode or large-canvas workflows. Google’s developer kits have accelerated progress, but inconsistent app behavior is still a common user complaint.
4. Why Apple has stayed quiet (so far)
Apple had not launched a foldable device by early 2025. Three driving factors explain the company’s restraint:
- A high UX bar. Apple reportedly requires foldables to meet iPhone-level reliability and refinement; current trade-offs around crease visibility, thickness, and power efficiency are said to fall short.
- Strategic focus. Apple is prioritizing spatial computing (Vision Pro), signaling a different roadmap for new interaction paradigms.
- Supply-chain dynamics. Apple’s preference for controlled supplier relationships complicates capacity planning because major panel makers already serve multiple Android OEMs.
Analysts have suggested Apple prototypes exist but mass production — if it happens — may not arrive until later in the decade.
5. Wider smartphone trends: not just folding screens
Foldables are one axis of ongoing innovation. Other parallel trends include:
- Materials and batteries. Advances in transparent displays, graphene and solid-state batteries could shift device trade-offs between thinness, capacity, and safety over 2026–2028.
- On-device AI. SoC-level AI performance is rising sharply, pushing phones toward being ever-smarter local assistants and personal compute hubs.
- Alternate form factors. Rollables, tri-folds, and other experiments (including projection and holographic interfaces) are under development, expanding the design space beyond simple folding.
6. Outlook: mainstream standard or premium segment?
Three variables will largely determine foldables’ long-run position:
- Price compression. Foldables today cost substantially more than comparable flagships (roughly 1.8× on average). Increased panel production capacity — particularly from Chinese suppliers — is expected to lower component costs materially, which should reduce retail prices.
- Real-world utility. Sustained expansion into vertical and professional use cases (healthcare, creative workflows, finance) will raise the value proposition beyond novelty. Some major software vendors have begun to optimize flagship apps for larger canvases, but enterprise-level adoption is still limited.
- Durability and reliability. Repair rates remain higher than for slab phones — driven primarily by display and hinge failures. OEMs are targeting stronger ingress protection and longer lifecycles; meaningful durability gains would remove a major adoption barrier.
Most analysts expect foldables to capture a large share of the premium tier (estimates commonly range from 30%–40% of phones priced above US$800) while remaining a complement, not a replacement, to traditional smartphones. In short: foldables are shaping up as the smartphone market’s “luxury SUV” — attractive and useful for defined audiences, but not yet everyone’s daily device.
Data note: Shipment and market-share figures referenced above reflect industry reporting and supply-chain analysis published through Q1 2025. Technology timelines are synthesized from vendor roadmaps and public white papers issued in 2024–2025.
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