The Foldable Phone Race Is Turning Into a Multi-Billion Dollar Industry

Every significant mobile technology event has a moment where people congregate around someone holding a phone that folds in half rather than a showy demo stage or a live product launch. This happens consistently, almost predictably.

The whispers begin. Individuals bend closer. Some extend their hands to touch it. It has occurred at launch events in Seoul, on trade floors in Barcelona, and in hotel lobbies where journalists are comparing notes. Even in 2025, most people still find something about a bending screen to be somewhat miraculous. It turns out that the value of that feeling of wonder is enormous.

For years, there has been a race for foldable phones, which started out slowly before picking up speed and cost. One of the most hotly debated product categories in consumer technology began as a Samsung experiment, which was publicly ridiculed by critics when the original Galaxy Fold arrived with brittle screens and an almost confrontational price tag.

This is supported by the numbers. Shipments of foldable smartphones have increased steadily worldwide, and analysts following the market now discuss projected market values in the tens of billions of dollars. Even the most optimistic early believers might not have predicted this level of scale this quickly.

Samsung is still the most noticeable player in the market, and it’s not getting any closer. With years of experience, the company has improved durability, thinned the crease, and refined hinge mechanisms. According to reports going into the second half of 2025, Samsung may be planning four foldable models, including clamshell formats that snap shut into something small enough to fit in a shirt pocket and book-style designs that open like a tiny tablet.

You can learn something from the scope of product planning. It claims that foldables are no longer considered a prestige experiment by Samsung. It considers them to be a serious product line that is worth investing in across a range of price points and formats.

However, the story becomes more intriguing when you consider what’s going on outside of Samsung, in the segments of the market that don’t frequently make headlines in the West. Just two years ago, Honor, a Chinese manufacturer that split off from Huawei, would have seemed unrealistic for a foldable device. However, Honor has been pushing engineering boundaries.

The Chinese version of the Magic V6 comes with a 7,150 mAh battery, which seems almost ridiculous considering how brutally foldables have traditionally sacrificed battery capacity for thinness. It implies that the engineering trade-offs that formerly characterized the category are beginning to relax. The walls are shifting.

And there’s Oppo. Those who keep a close eye on display technology have taken a serious interest in the Find N6, and for good reason. The gadget solves a problem that has plagued foldables from the start: the crease. The most obvious weakness in the category has always been that visible line that runs down the middle of the inner display, which is what detractors point to when claiming that foldables aren’t quite ready.

Oppo’s response is a display that, according to most accounts, is almost crease-free and has a purported self-healing feature where any discernible fold line gradually disappears with continued use. It remains to be seen if that assertion holds true in day-to-day living over several months. However, the ambition indicates the direction of the competition.

It’s difficult to ignore the fact that all of this is taking place before Apple has formally entered the room. The company hasn’t made any public statements regarding a foldable iPhone, which is perfectly in line with Apple’s business practices. Nothing is previewed by it. When it’s ready, it appears and takes over the story from that point on. However, the industry is acting as if the arrival of Apple is a question of when rather than if.

Previous rumors put the price of a potential foldable iPhone at about $2,000. It was anticipated that Apple’s most notable hardware accomplishment would be a nearly undetectable crease. The issue is that rivals might have established crease-free screens by the time Apple shows up. Apple might need to look elsewhere for the differentiation it was hoping for.

One option is the display ratio. There are rumors that the iPhone Fold will have a larger aspect ratio than the near-square models that currently rule the Android foldable market. This distinction is not insignificant. The geometry of a foldable’s inner screen is more important than it may seem because video consumption has come to define how most people actually use their phones—long YouTube sessions, vertical TikTok scrolling, streaming while on the go.

The way content appears and feels in hand could be significantly enhanced by a wider unfolded display. Even that window may be closing, though, as Samsung is reportedly developing a wider foldable of its own.

The pull of its ecosystem is what Apple can rely on, possibly more consistently than any hardware specifications. Hardware-focused observers occasionally underweight this aspect of the analysis. Because their photos, apps, watch, laptop, and AirPods are all connected to Apple’s software environment, a sizable and devoted portion of iPhone users find it truly impossible to switch operating systems. This isn’t due to stubbornness.

Those consumers won’t be comparing Apple’s upcoming foldable to the Oppo Find N6 on a spec sheet. They’ll be wondering if it complements the life they’ve already established within Apple’s premises. That’s a completely different kind of question, and Apple has always been able to respond to it.

There is a perception in the industry that the foldable market is about to enter a new phase, one that is less experimental and more competitive in the manner that established product categories typically are. Instead of merely attempting to demonstrate the viability of the concept, companies are fighting over margins, features, and brand loyalty.

The idea is workable. That dispute is resolved. Convincing enough people to spend $1,500 or $2,000 on a device that folds instead of one that doesn’t is the more difficult task of transforming viable into dominant. That gap is still open. However, the trajectory is evident, and the money that follows is genuine.