Samsung says by 2025, the company’s foldables will be more popular than its Galaxy S phones

Samsung is already the largest smartphone manufacturer in the world and the 2021 foldable models accounted for 2.6% of the 271.5 million smartphones shipped by the Korean company last year. And while Samsung had a leading 20% slice of global smartphone shipments in 2021, Counterpoint Research says that its share of premium smartphone shipments declined to 17%, down 3 percentage points year over year. At the same time, Apple’s share of the 2021 worldwide premium smartphone market was a whopping 60% after rising 5 percentage points last year.

Counterpoint Senior Analyst Jene Park expects Sammy to ring up nearly 9 million Z Flip 4 and Z Fold 4 units this year which, as we previously noted, was the size of the entire foldable market in 2021. Counterpoint expects the size of the foldable market to rise 77% this year to 16 million units and another 63% to 26 million units in 2023.

In order for foldables to become more mainstream, pricing is going to have to drop. The Galaxy Z Fold 4 starts at $1,799.99 and the Galaxy Z Flip 4 is priced at $999.99 and up.