Despite 10% higher sales, Samsung reportedly cuts production targets for the Fold 5 and Flip 5

Samsung's latest foldable handsets are doing quite well, thank you, as sales of the Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Galaxy Z Flip 5 are up 10% compared to sales of the Galaxy Z Fold 4 and Galaxy Z Flip 4 at the same time last year. According to Korea's The Elec, as of the middle of this month, the manufacturer has over 8 weeks of inventory for both phones remaining. The report cites this data to indicate that the book-style foldable and the clamshell foldable are both still selling at a steady clip.

The Galaxy Z Flip 5 has garnered 65% of the total sales of the line. The report notes that Samsung orders parts every two weeks for the two foldable phones, so if demand picks up, the tech giant could order more parts for the two models. Originally, Samsung was going to produce 13 million units combined of the Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Galaxy Z Flip 5, but despite the higher sales total year-over-year, Samsung has reduced the number of foldables it plans to build because of the harsher-than-expected global economic conditions.

Samsung could end up shipping 10 million Galaxy Z units worldwide this year with 7 million deliveries of the Galaxy Z Fold 5/Galaxy Z Flip 5 and the remaining 3 million shipments made up of legacy models. Last year, Samsung shipped over 9 million units of its foldable phones.

South Korea's Thanksgiving Holiday starts this week and Samsung has not put in additional orders which would seem to indicate that projected demand for the near term is expected to remain stable. Since suppliers usually shut down production during the holiday, had demand for the phones been well above expectations, Sammy would have ordered more parts and supplies before its suppliers closed their assembly lines for the holiday. 

The Elec also says that Samsung's suppliers will soon start manufacturing parts for the Galaxy S24 series and hopes to introduce it a month earlier than this year's Galaxy S23 line. The Galaxy S23, Galaxy S23+, and Galaxy S23 Ultra were unveiled on February 1st and released on February 17th. Samsung hopes to move up the release of the Galaxy S24 series as a way to take on the iPhone 15 line which is expected to continue selling strongly early next year.