Foldable phone shipments expected to double in 2024; Chinese brands challenge Samsung's dominance

New Delhi: Shipments of super premium foldable phones are set to double on-year in 2024, with the segment seeing a slew of new entrants, mainly Chinese players, to compete with market leader Samsung.

The Korean smartphone brand, despite increasing competition, held a commanding 83% share last year, but down from 100% a year before, according to Counterpoint Research, factoring in the new entrants.

Market research firm IDC said almost a million foldable phones were shipped in 2023, while Counterpoint Research put that number conservatively at 0.5 million, predicting 2024 will be the year when it crosses the 1 million mark.


Market trackers predict Samsung is likely to continue its dominance this year as well, in the absence of sharp cost-cutting in the supply chain for Chinese players to compete aggressively, and an inherent lack of trust for Chinese brands when it comes to buying high-end premium products.

Motorola was the second largest foldable smartphone brand in 2023 with 8% share, followed by Chinese-owned Oppo with 4%, and OnePlus with 3.78%, indicating an uphill task for the brands to compete neck-to-neck with Samsung.

“Samsung’s lead is due to its first-mover advantage. Its products are now in their fifth generation, while others such as OnePlus and Oppo are only out with their first-generation offering,” said Tarun Pathak, research director, Counterpoint Research.

He added that there is now an increased demand for the more premium foldable form factor, over the flip-style devices, on the back of clear-cut use-cases around gaming, content creation and consumption, along with productivity enhancements.

“Samsung has iterated enough to understand these consumer needs and has worked with popular apps such as Instagram to tweak the software for the newer form factor,” Pathak said, adding that Chinese brands are tackling this by addressing the shortcomings in the Samsung devices.

For instance, the foldable phone from OnePlus has a wider outer screen, which makes it more useful for day-to-day tasks, while Oppo innovated on the cover display of its flip phone, and Motorola and Tecno are competing on the basis of pricing.

“The foldables are a relatively recent addition to the portfolio, and we were largely selling devices in the sub-Rs 20,000 segment, with the average selling prices going from Rs 12,000 to Rs 18,000. So when you do launch a foldable even at an aggressive price, we are not going to see runaway success with the first few generations,” a former executive at a Chinese smartphone brand told ET, preferring to be anonymous.

“Pricing is the biggest barrier for the Chinese players. Foldables are going for around $1200-1300, while Chinese brands have technically not sold anything beyond $600-700 apart from OnePlus. So there is a big delta for them to cross,” Pathak said.

Market trackers said the brands are taking the financing route to make the devices more palatable for Indian users. Brands such as OnePlus are offering long-tenure financing schemes to sell its foldable phone priced above Rs 1 lakh, the company’s first device to cross that price mark.

Similarly, brands such as Motorola and Tecno have launched flip and fold devices at a much more aggressive pricing, along with putting out videos of how the phones have been tested for durability.