After unveiling the Galaxy Fold, the first foldable phone, in February 2019, Samsung is expected to enter theFoldable mobile phoneThe market has been developing primarily with the foldable screen, and companies including Huawei, Xiaomi, vivo, OPPO, Honor, and Motorola have subsequently launched their own foldable screen phones. Even Google announced the Pixel Fold this year. However, despite the constant discussion in the market, these phones have yet to become mainstream due to factors such as price and durability.
Many consumers consider the relatively high price and relatively low durability of such mobile phones. Furthermore, while most foldable-screen phones have optimized app display and user interfaces for large screens, and even offer enhanced multitasking experiences, many market demands can be met with standard phones, and there's no real need for a foldable-screen phone.
Therefore, most people believe that in addition to price and durability, the more important considerations for mobile phones with concave screens are the lack of more critical killer application experiences, making it difficult to convince most consumers to switch to mobile phones with concave screens.
However, for many mobile phone brands, foldable phones represent a new opportunity to revive the smartphone market. Despite market demand for these devices, which have existed for nearly five years, they still barely account for over 5% of global smartphone sales. Some consumers also express dissatisfaction with the similarities among current foldable phones, leading them to anticipate the emergence of new and diverse models.
Compared to traditional upright smartphones, foldable screen phones offer a different user experience because they can be used to convert to a larger screen size, or because the folding mechanism makes the phone size more portable. However, with Samsung, LG, and OPPO previously launching phone designs with more folds or designs that can stretch and enlarge the screen, consumers are also looking forward to more unique changes in future mobile phone products.
As for Apple, it seems that it is still in no hurry to launch a mobile phone with a foldable screen. Even though there are many rumors that Apple has already started developing such a product internally, it seems more likely that it will first add a foldable screen mechanism design to the iPad model rather than launch a foldable iPhone model first.
According to market research firm Counterpoint Research, foldable-screen smartphones are expected to account for more than one-third of the smartphone market priced over US$2027 by 600. This means that industry players, including Samsung, will continue to double down on their investments in foldable-screen smartphones and may even launch mobile phone products with different designs during this period.
