2026 will be the year foldable phones sink or swim. Samsung has been chipping away at the category for several years now — and its latest book-style foldable, the Galaxy Z Fold 7, is the best foldable phone money can buy — but these niche, expensive devices still represent less than 3% of the global smartphone market.
Could that be about to change? Apple is strongly rumored to be launching its first foldable iPhone, the iPhone Ultra, in September, and I’ve been itching to ask Samsung for its thoughts on whether Apple’s entry into the foldable market will boost or threaten its own success.
Given that the iPhone Ultra doesn’t exist yet, and that Samsung rarely acknowledges its competitors by name, I’ve been waiting to broach the subject with the Korean tech giant — but in my preparation for this year’s Galaxy Unpacked event, I stumbled across a revealing 2025 interview in which Samsung addresses the potential implications of a foldable iPhone head-on.
Here’s how the President and COO of the company’s Mobile eXperience (MX) division, Won-joon Choi, responded to questions posed by Bloomberg’s Shery Ahn about growing competition in the foldable market:
Shery Ahn: How does Samsung think about competition? Because you have so many Chinese makers coming out with foldables with good cameras.
Won-joon Choi: You know, rather than focusing on the competition, I think we have been focusing on our consumers. What is the experience that we can bring to consumers, and how complete are those experiences? I think healthy competition with other companies will bring more innovations, and then bring more benefits to consumers. So we are welcoming others to join this category, which we created back in 2019.
SA: Even if Apple comes out with a foldable next year, which is what people are saying, how do you keep that edge?
WC: We’ve been doing this for many years, and we have accumulated a lot of technologies and know-how. Having another global company join this category, I think it’s good for the industry, and also, it’s going to be great for consumers.
Now, for obvious reasons, Samsung isn’t going to publicly admit that it’s fearful of Apple’s entry into a market that it’s dominated for years, but I do think Choi was being more honest than diplomatic in his response.
The emergence of improbably thin and lightweight foldables like the Honor Magic V3 and Oppo Find N5 forced Samsung to step up its game with the Galaxy Z Fold 7, and I expect that the market-leading IP68 durability rating of the Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold won’t be market-leading any longer once the Galaxy Z Fold 8 arrives later this year.
Choi’s assertion that “competition with other companies will bring more benefits to consumers” has already proven itself to be true, then; and if Apple delivers something unique with the iPhone Ultra — whether that’s a hardware- or software-related innovation — you can bet that the likes of Samsung, Honor, and Oppo will endeavor to replicate that innovation in their own future products.
As for whether “having another global company join this category” is “good for the industry,” Choi will likely be proven right about that, too.
Counterpoint Research predicts that global foldable smartphone shipments will grow 20% in 2026 following Apple’s entry into the category, and I suspect that this rise will be driven by existing iPhone users upgrading to a foldable iPhone, rather than existing Galaxy Z Fold users switching to a foldable iPhone. The market will expand, but I don’t think Apple will eat Samsung’s lunch (existing foldable-averse Android users aren’t going to be convinced by an iOS-powered foldable, that’s for sure).
Of course, Samsung won’t want consumers to forget that it stuck by and popularized foldable phones when other companies wouldn’t — just as it pioneered the large-screen phones we’ve all become accustomed to using today.
But Choi’s addendum — “we are welcoming others to join this category, which we created back in 2019” — suggests Samsung won’t simply share the foldable stage with Apple without reminding buyers of its heritage in this long-existing market.
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axel.metz@futurenet.com (Axel Metz)
