Apple's first foldable iPhone is projected to capture 25% of global foldable shipments in its debut year, pushing Samsung down to 32% from 40%.
Key Points:
- Global foldable shipments are forecast to rise 21% in 2026, with Apple debuting in second place.
- Samsung keeps the lead at 32%, down from 40% last year, but retains an edge on product maturity.
- Foldables still make up a low single-digit share of total smartphone volume.
Counterpoint Forecast Puts Apple Second In Foldables
Counterpoint Research published the projection last week, a day after Samsung unveiled its new foldable lineup at an event in London. The firm sees global foldable shipments rising 21% year over year in 2026. Apple has still not confirmed that the product exists.
The forecast takes share from every incumbent. Huawei falls to 24% from 30%, Motorola to 8% from 12%, and HONOR to 3% from 7%.
Apple lands in second place without having sold a single unit.
Supply chain reporting points the same way. Apple has told suppliers to prepare roughly 10 million foldable units this year, up from an earlier target of 7 million to 8 million. Panel makers now expect the device to account for 29% of all foldable display orders.
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Liz Lee And Ming-Chi Kuo On Apple's Late Entry
Liz Lee, an associate director at Counterpoint, said Apple's arrival should lift consumer awareness and raise the benchmark for premium foldables. She still credited Samsung with clear advantages in product maturity, channel reach and foldable user experience.
That split verdict contains the whole argument.
IDC frames the same entry in money rather than units. The research firm expects Apple to take more than 22% of foldable shipments in its first year but roughly 34% of the segment by revenue, on an average selling price near $2,400. Francisco Jeronimo, a vice president at the firm, called the launch a turning point for the category.
Those two numbers describe a luxury product rather than a mass-market one. They form the strongest case that Apple redraws the top of the market without moving its middle.
Ming-Chi Kuo of TF International Securities argued that Apple is not arriving late, because Android foldables never reached the mainstream inside the premium tier.
Samsung's Seven-Year Head Start Under Pressure
Samsung has led this category since 2019 and moved first again this month. It priced the passport-shaped Galaxy Z Fold8 at $1,899 and the Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra at $2,099 on Jul. 22, with retail sales opening Aug. 7.
Both carry $100 increases over their predecessors, which the company attributes to memory chip costs driven higher by demand from the AI industry.
Ben Wood, chief analyst at CCS Insight, noted that Samsung's switch to a wider screen was unsurprising given reports of a wide-screen iPhone. He read the redesign as an effort to get ahead of Apple.
The pioneer premium has never converted into volume. Samsung shipped the first Galaxy Fold in 2019, and seven years later foldables remain a low single-digit slice of global smartphone shipments, roughly 20 million units against well over a billion handsets sold each year.
Whether Apple lifts that ceiling or simply harvests the richest corner beneath it is the question September will start to answer.
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