Are Foldable Smartphones the Future? Pt. 2

by Rian

I was asked recently if I would be willing to update my old piece, Are Foldable Smartphones the Future? with the news foldable smartphone is still around. Indeed, Samsung and Xiaomi, the two largest Android makers, have been pushing both folds and flips since its initial launch. Well received it may be, but so was 3D TV, hence why I am writing part 2 of foldable smartphone op-ed, not an update to the old one. In fact, Mark Gurman has recently written a piece that Apple may be working on a foldable iPad set to release by 2028 —my golly, that’s at least 10 years since I wrote the first piece.

Let us focus on the perspectives of manufacturers this time. In the last piece, I mainly discussed the possibilities of what users would gain from a foldable smartphone —in other words, a perspective of consumers. But if you are selling a new kind of product, you can’t simply tell investors ‘this is new, so it will sell’ and expect it to fly off the shelves. The idea that new kind of product proving its own worth is especially important in design language of smartphones. When the first iPhone was introduced on stage, Steve Jobs famously explained why Apple chose full touchscreen bar type as the form factor. This keynote led to the development of interests from third parties and Apple’s App Store further down the road. One may argue the credits behind the App Store should go to touch screen display.

Pretend for a moment that there is an inherent advantage that is exclusive to foldable devices. Apple makes the case for the advantage of a new foldable iPhone and/or iPad on stage and release the new device. Combined, iPhone and iPad sales make up 286 million devices in 2023 alone; and any manufacturers would have seen the immense popularity just from the Apple alone. In 2023, around 18.6 million foldable smartphones were sold. Imagine Apple releases a new foldable with its 232 million figures from 2023. If the rumors of foldable iPhones around the corner were true, we should be seeing foldable display manufacturers increasing its capacity by 12 times over. And the number of facilities and the people who would work there is not something Apple can hide easily.

These parts would also be exclusive to Apple devices in some foreseeable futures. Foldable devices are yet to decide on what is the de-facto size is, let alone what the resolution will be. Unlike bar type smartphones where most components have already become standardized to the point one can build a new smartphone with a gimmick in a few month, we are talking about quite literally cutting the logic board in half to make room for hinges. Mark Gurman’s estimate of 2028 or onward is likely the only plausible time line we have, but 2028 is too far out that the estimate, be it may accurate or not, itself becomes less useful.

Stories behind foldable portable devices are quite reminiscent of how curved TVs came to its place. Although it has lost popularity significantly, a market research behind curved TVs suggests that curved form factor is still growing, from 4.2 billion USD in 2019 to projected 9.1 billion by 2026. The outlook may seem rosy, until we compare the figure to that of entirety of TV market, which had the revenue of 97 billion USD in 2024.

Again, I’m not trying to analyze foldable smartphone market as a whole. There is a merit to the technology. What I am growing wary of is the idea that foldable will just happen once Apple is on board —it won’t. NFC is the prime example of this. When smartphone manufacturers started shipping their devices with NFC in 2010, enthusiasts were eagerly waiting Apple to hop on aboard. In 2014, Apple finally released an iPhone with NFC chip inside. But we are yet to hear major developments centered around NFC technology, let alone applications that only NFC can bring. Will foldable suddenly bloom once Apple hop on board? The track records seem to say otherwise.