HIGHLIGHTS
- Shipments of foldable phones increased by more than 300 percent in 2021, according to a new tracking study.
- Because of its latest foldables, Samsung was the clear leader.
Since the release of the Galaxy Fold in 2019, modern foldable phones have been a thing. However, the product category has taken some time to attain massive sales success. Omdia's new market share study for 2021 sheds some insight on foldables.
According to the tracking business, worldwide foldable phone shipments increased 309 percent year on year in 2021, with nine million handsets shipped last year. Unsurprisingly, when Samsung released its Galaxy Z Fold 3 and Galaxy Z Flip 3 devices in the second half of 2021, eight million units were sold.
In terms of these gadgets, Omdia claims that the Galaxy Z Flip 3 was the most popular, with 4.6 million units delivered. Meanwhile, with 2.5 million devices delivered, the Galaxy Z Fold 3 was rated second for the year. In other words, the Flip 3 accounted for over two-thirds of all new foldables sold by Samsung in 2021.
Surprisingly, the monitoring firm projected that Huawei will be the second largest foldable OEM in 2021, with 900,000 handsets supplied last year. Omdia also mentioned Xiaomi's China-only Mix Fold, which debuted last year but failed to reach sales forecasts. Nonetheless, Xiaomi is expected to release the Mix Fold 2 later this year.
Finally, Omdia stated that Chinese OEMs will most likely confine their foldable phone production to China this year as well. If accurate, this would be upsetting because it would mean that worldwide customers will have few decent options other than Samsung in 2022.
Nonetheless, it is obvious that the foldable phone market had tremendous growth in 2018 following a sluggish start in 2019 and 2020. Now, let's talk about foldables breaking the $700 barrier.
