Phone sales

Samsung’s foldable phone sales are up 4x from last year

SEOUL, 30 Dec. (Yonhap) — Samsung Electronics Co. said Thursday it sold four times as many Galaxy Z series foldable phones this year as it did last year, cementing its lead in the growing new smartphone segment.

Although the South Korean tech giant did not disclose the exact count, the total sales of the Galaxy Z series would be around 8 to 9 nine million units this year, led by the popularity of the Galaxy Z Fold3, which folds in half like a book, and the clamshell-style Galaxy Z Flip3, among young tech-savvy consumers.

About a month after their market launch in August, the combined sales of the two new foldable models exceeded the total cumulative sales of Samsung foldable devices from last year, the company said.

Notably, both have proven to be Samsung’s most popular phones to date, with the highest conversion rates that users of other brands have switched to, Samsung said, thanks to the former’s “large screen for viewing content, multitasking capabilities and productivity features, including the S Pen” and the latter’s “sleek design, portability and an innovative foldable form factor”.

Compared to the Galaxy Note20, Samsung said it saw a 150% increase in users switching smartphone brands to the Galaxy Z Flip3, and a 140% increase compared to the Galaxy S21.

The world’s largest mobile phone maker introduced the concept of foldable screens in 2011 and unveiled its first Galaxy Fold foldable device in 2019.

Samsung has launched both the Z Fold3 and Z Flip3, powered by a 5-nanometer app processor, at lower prices than their predecessors as it strives to mainstream the foldable smartphone category and to strengthen its presence in the high-end market.

Industry tracker Counterpoint Research previously estimated that the foldable smartphone market would grow three times this year compared to 2020 and that Samsung would dominate the market with a 75% market share through 2023.

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