Samsung spent the better part of a decade trying to convince the world that folding a phone in half like a soggy taco was the future of technology. They dumped billions into marketing, shipped a phone that literally snapped in reviewers' hands back in 2019, and somehow still ended up as the undisputed king of the foldable market. Impressive, honestly. But here's the thing about being the only kid at the lunch table with a weird new toy—eventually everyone else shows up, and suddenly your $1,800 party trick isn't special anymore.
That's exactly where Samsung finds itself in 2024 and beyond. The foldable space is getting crowded, and the competition isn't just coming from the usual Android suspects. It's coming from Cupertino.
Let's talk numbers, because the vibes alone won't cut it. Samsung still controls the majority of the global foldable market, but that share has been steadily eroding. Huawei, despite getting kneecapped by US sanctions, somehow keeps cranking out foldables in China that make the Galaxy Z Fold look like a flip phone from 2006. Motorola's Razr reboot is eating Samsung's lunch in the clamshell category. And Google's Pixel Fold, while a first-gen mess in a lot of ways, proved that even the search engine company can slap together a hinge.
But the real existential threat has been lurking in the shadows for years: Apple. The company that shows up five years late to every product category, acts like it invented it, and then proceeds to make more money than everyone else combined.
Rumors of a foldable iPhone have been swirling since roughly the Jurassic period. Analysts have been predicting it "next year" every year since 2020. But now the whispers are getting louder, and they're coming from the supply chain—the same supply chain that's been right about every major Apple product leak for the past decade. Reports suggest Apple is testing foldable display prototypes, working with Samsung Display (yes, that Samsung) and LG, and targeting a launch window somewhere in the 2026-2027 range. Maybe. Possibly. Don't hold your breath.
Here's why this matters: Apple doesn't enter a market to compete. It enters to dominate. The iPod didn't just compete with MP3 players—it obliterated them. The iPhone didn't just compete with BlackBerrys—it turned them into museum exhibits. The Apple Watch didn't just compete with Fitbits—it made them irrelevant for anyone who wasn't a hardcore runner on a budget.
So when Apple finally drops a foldable, it won't be about specs. It'll be about ecosystem. It'll be about the seamless integration with iOS, the App Store, iMessage, and the entire walled garden that keeps users locked in like they signed a blood oath. Samsung's foldables run Android, which is fine, but Android doesn't have the same gravitational pull. Nobody's staying on a Galaxy Z Fold because they're addicted to the Samsung ecosystem. They're staying because they already paid $1,800 and dammit, they're going to get their money's worth.
Samsung's response so far has been the predictable corporate playbook: throw more models at the wall and hope something sticks. We've got the Z Fold, the Z Flip, the Z Fold FE, the Z Flip FE, and probably a Z Fold Ultra Mega Pro Max Plus coming next year. Differentiation is a mess. Nobody knows which one to buy. And the prices keep climbing while the innovation curve flattens out. Last year's foldable was thinner. This year's is slightly thinner and has a marginally better crease. Cool. Wake me up when it doesn't cost more than a used Honda Civic.
Meanwhile, the durability concerns haven't gone away. People are still terrified of scratching that inner screen with a fingernail. Repair costs are astronomical. And the software experience, while improved, still feels like Android bolted onto a tablet that happens to bend.
Apple, being Apple, will likely wait until it can solve the durability problem in a way that feels magical instead of fragile. Then it'll charge $2,500, call it the iFold or whatever, and sell out for six months straight.
Samsung built the foldable market. There's