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Foldable phones have been around the corner for longer than you might expect — I can’t even count the number of flexible OLED demos I’ve seen at trade shows over the years. Foldable devices are now a reality and have been since Samsung released the first Galaxy Fold in 2019, but you probably haven’t bought one yet. Samsung is now into its third generation of foldables and says sales are up 300 percent in 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 were slightly cheaper than previous models, with the Fold3 dropping to $1,799.99 and the Flip3 jumping the thousand-dollar barrier to $999 .99. Both phones offered a range of improvements over the second-generation foldables, including water resistance and S Pen support for the larger Fold3.
With lower prices and better features, the Z Fold3 and Flip3 sold much better than the previous versions. At the start, Samsung announced that pre-orders outpaced all sales of foldable devices in the previous year. Samsung now says it sold a total of 10 million foldable devices in 2021. That’s triple the sales in 2020. Of those sales, 70 percent were for the smaller clamshell-style Flip3. This phone almost disappears in your pocket like the flip phones of old. The $1,800 Fold3 is more of a niche device that takes up even more room in your pocket than your average smartphone.
The Z Fold3 only accounted for 30 percent of Samsung’s foldable device sales last year, but that’s not surprising at $1,800.
It’s not hard to see why people love foldable devices – I’m quite enamored with them myself. The traditional form factor of a flat glass panel is outdated and uninteresting, and foldables offer new experiences.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 Display” makes it easy to ignore distractions and maintains a pocket-friendly size despite having a large internal OLED.
It’s a bit odd for Samsung to start talking about 2021 sales figures in the middle of 2022, but it will launch new fourth-generation foldable devices in just a few weeks (August 10). If this year is anything like last year, Samsung will see a jump in sales early on. Samsung offers improved trade-in values for older phones if you pre-order one of its flagships, and even allows trade-ins for multiple devices to cover the high price of foldables. We don’t know about Samsung’s intended pricing yet, but if it can keep costs down, foldables could break into the mainstream. According to rumors, the 2024 folding mid-range could be the tipping point.
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