Samsung dominated a record breaking third quarter for the foldable smartphone market

With an estimated 1.6% penetration rate for this year (according to TrendForce), foldable smartphones have a long way to go to reach the 85%-90% rate that the smartphone industry has in general. The foldable market has just come off a record third quarter performance that saw shipments soar 215% from the second quarter number and 16% year-over-year to hit 7 million units. Led by the release of both the Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Galaxy Z Flip 5, Samsung dominated the market during the quarter as usual.

According to Display Supply Chain Consultants (DSCC), Samsung had a 72% market share during the third quarter which is dominating to be sure, but was down from the 86% slice of the global foldable pie that Samsung had during the same quarter last year. Competitors released more models and produced higher volumes. To show you how much Sammy still dominates the sector, the second largest market share was the 9% attributed to Huawei. The latter's former sub-unit, Honor, finished 3rd with 8% of the Q3 foldable market.

As you might expect, the top two selling foldable phones during the third quarter were the Galaxy Z Flip 5 and Galaxy Z Fold 5 responsible for 45% and 24% of Q3 foldable shipments respectively. It might surprise some of you that the Galaxy Z Flip has been the top-selling foldable beating out its stablemate Galaxy Z Fold for a few years now. Huawei's Mate X3 was third accounting for 6% of the quarter's foldable shipments followed by Honor's Magic V2 responsible for 5% of shipments, and the Huawei Mate X5 with a 3% share.

DSCC expects shipments during the holiday quarter to rise 47% year-over-year to 3.6 million. But compared to the record third quarter, on a sequential basis, Q4 deliveries of foldables are expected to decline 35%. DSCC forecasts Samsung's foldable shipments to decline during the three months and expects its market share to decline to 42% during the period. Last year, Samsung had 83% of the foldable market during the holiday quarter but DSCC sees Q4 shipments declining for the Galaxy Z Flip 5 and Galaxy Z Fold 5.

DSCC sees Huawei taking an impressive 21% share of the foldable market in Q4 with Honor at 19%. While the Galaxy Z Flip 5 should still lead the way with a 22% market share, Huawei's Mate X5, with a 15% slice of the foldable pie, will be second and the Honor Magic V3 will move to number three. With 12% of the global foldable market during the fourth quarter, DSCC expects the Galaxy Z Fold 5 to finish fourth during the final quarter of the year.

The CEO of DSCC, Ross Young, summed up the foldable market for 2023 by writing,"2023 has been a mixed year for foldables. It has benefited from Huawei regaining its footing and gaining significant share, several new entrants such as Google, OnePlus, and Tecno, and some impressive improvements in device thickness, weight, and reductions in seam visibility."

Young added, "We have also seen Chinese panel suppliers ramp up their volumes, take share from Samsung Display, and introduce a number of innovations previously only available from Samsung Display such as LTPO, POL-LESS, and UTG. However, 2023 foldable phone volumes ended up 15% below our Q1’23 forecast as the high end of the Android smartphone market remains sluggish."

Some analysts believe that the foldable market will remain a small segment of the smartphone industry until Apple steps up and delivers a foldable iPhone. To show you how hard it is to make forecasts about an Apple foldable, TF International analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, considered one of the most reliable analysts on the Apple beat, said back in 2021 that Apple would ship 15 million to 20 million foldable iPhone units in 2023. That number will be off by 15 million to 20 million since there is no iPhone foldable available.

Just a couple of months ago we passed along word of a report from DigiTimes that said a foldable iPad could enter production at the end of 2024 in time for an early 2025 release. At this stage, with all of the rumors about foldable Apple devices, we'll believe that a foldable iPhone or iPad is here when we see it.