Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 3 5G was the top foldable phone shipped worldwide last year

With each passing year, the fledgling foldable phone market gets more entrenched as features are added, prices come down, and more manufacturers start building them. Last year was a breakthrough year for Samsung's foldables in terms of units shipped. A new report disseminated by analytics firm Omdia revealed that of the top 11 foldables available in the marketplace last year, five of them were Samsung models.

The most popular foldable smartphone last year was the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 3 with 4.6 million units shipped. That represented a spectacular increase from the 1.1 million Galaxy Z Flip handsets that Sammy delivered in 2020. Perhaps the most important change made to the 2021 model was the addition of water resistance to the newer model.

With an IP rating of X8, the Galaxy Z Flip 3 was not tested for protection from solid objects like dust. However, the phone can be submerged in nearly five feet of water for as long as 30 minutes and emerge unscathed. This model, and the Galaxy Z Fold 3 (which also carries an IPX8 rating), are the first foldable phones to feature protection from water, but we have to assume that the decision made by the manufacturer not to test for dust protection means that both phones have little, if any, protection from dust.

Another big change for the Galaxy Z Flip, and some would argue that it is more important than adding protection from water, is the size of the external Cover Screen. The OG model was equipped with a small 1.1-inch Cover Screen the size of which practically made it useless.

Expanded to 1.9-inches on the Galaxy Flip 3, the larger Cover Screen allows users to see their notifications without opening the phone, use the external display as a viewfinder for selfies, see the time of day, access settings and widgets, and quickly use Samsung Pay. The Galaxy Z Flip 3 was also nearly $400 cheaper than its predecessor which might have had a lot to do with the big increase in units shipped.

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Beside adding water-resistance to the Galaxy Z Fold 3, Samsung made the display on that model more durable and also added support for the S Pen. Samsung also slashed the price of the Galaxy Z Fold 3 by $200 compared to the Galaxy Z Fold 2. That took the price of the foldable from $1,999 to $1,799 leading to a huge increase in shipments from 700,000 units in 2020 to 2.5 million units in 2021.

Combined, the Galaxy Z Flip 3 and Galaxy Z Fold 3 accounted for the shipment of 7.1 million foldable handsets last year, or 61% of the total number delivered. Samsung expects shipments of its foldable phones to rise as much as 70% this year.

The Galaxy Z Flip 3 and Galaxy Z Fold 3 were the first and second most shipped foldable phones last year, respectively. Can you guess which foldable came in third? It was the Huawei Mate X2, the sequel to the beleaguered manufacturer's Mate X and Mate Xs models. Despite its expensive price tag (the basic 256GB Mate X2 is priced at the equivalent of $2,800 USD), Huawei managed to ship 500,000 units in 2021 topping the number of previous generation Galaxy Z Flip 5G and  Galaxy Z Fold 2 devices shipped last year.

Because of the U.S. export rules blocking Huawei from receiving cutting-edge chips from foundries that use American equipment, the company had to offer a version of the Mate X2 that supports 4G LTE only. The latter recorded shipments of 300,000 phones.

Next on the list is the Xiaomi Mi Mix Fold; despite sales that were under expectations, a second-gen model is expected to be released in the first half of this year. Oppo's Find N is the eighth phone on the list and the Find N's internal tablet-sized display features a square-like aspect ratio. Next comes Samsung's W21, (a foldable similar to the Galaxy Z Flip that is available only in China), Huawei's P50 Pocket which is a foldable flip phone like the Galaxy Z Flip line.

The Honor Magic V was released in January missing the deadline to be included in this chart, and vivo is expected to join the club with the release of its first foldable phone sometime  during the first half of this year.

Omida expects 14 million foldables to be shipped in 2022 compared to the 9 million that were delivered in 2021. By 2026, the analytical firm expects shipments of foldables to hit 61 million units making up 3.6% of all smartphone shipments.