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Foldable phones have been around the corner for longer than you’d expect—I can’t even count the number of flexible OLED demos I’ve seen at trade shows over the years. Now, foldables are a reality, and have been since Samsung released the first Galaxy Fold in 2019, but you probably haven’t bought one yet. Samsung is in its third generation of foldables now and says sales are up 300 percent by 2021. Foldables may not be mainstream yet, but that day is coming.
Samsung released the current third-generation foldables, the Z Fold3 and Z Flip3, in the fall of 2021. These devices came out a bit cheaper than the previous models, with the Fold3 dropping to $1,799.99 and the Flip3 breaking the thousand dollar barrier at $999.99. . Both phones also offered a number of improvements over the second-generation foldables, including water resistance and S Pen support for the larger Fold3.
With lower prices i better features, the Z Fold3 and Flip3 sold much better than the previous versions. Early on, Samsung announced that pre-orders surpassed all foldable sales from the previous year. Now, Samsung says it sold a total of 10 million foldables in 2021. That’s triple the sales numbers from 2020. Of those sales, 70 percent were for the smaller, shell-style Flip3. This phone almost disappears in your pocket like old phones. The $1,800 Fold3 is more of a niche device, taking up even more pocket space than your average smartphone.
The Z Fold3 only accounted for 30 percent of Samsung’s foldable sales last year, but that’s not surprising at $1,800.
It’s not hard to see why people like collapsibles – I’ve become quite enamored with them myself. The traditional flat glass slab form factor is outdated and uninteresting, and foldables offer new experiences. The Fold3 is the best multitasking experience you’ll get on a smartphone, and the S Pen makes it great for taking notes. The Flip3 with its small external “cover screen” makes it easier to ignore distractions and retains a pocket-friendly size despite having a large internal OLED.
It’s a little strange that Samsung will start talking about 2021 sales figures in the middle of 2022, but it will launch new fourth-generation foldables in a few weeks (on August 10). If this year is anything like the last, Samsung will see an increase in sales early on. Samsung offers improved trade-in values on older phones if you reserve one of its flagships, and even allows multi-device trade-ins to defray the high cost of foldables. We don’t know about Samsung’s planned pricing yet, but if it can keep bringing the cost down, foldables could enter the mainstream. The rumored 2024 mid-range foldable could be the tipping point.
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