{"id":11921,"date":"2025-08-20T16:10:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T16:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/11921\/"},"modified":"2025-08-20T16:10:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T16:10:08","slug":"flip-phones-are-reigniting-the-smartphone-wars-led-by-samsung","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/11921\/","title":{"rendered":"Flip Phones Are Reigniting the Smartphone Wars, Led by Samsung"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new wave of flippable and foldable phones is shaking up the US smartphone market, long dominated by Apple’s iPhone<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The iPhone remains king, but flip phones<\/a> are spurring innovation and gaining momentum with consumers.<\/p>\n

“There is quite a bit of buzz around this,” Forrester analyst Dipanjan Chatterjee told Business Insider. Still, he said foldables remain niche, representing 1% to 2% of the smartphone market.<\/p>\n

Companies including Samsung, Motorola, and Google have ventured into foldable or flippable smartphones \u2014 Samsung with the Galaxy Z Fold and Galaxy Z Flip, Motorola with its Razr flip phones, and Google with its Pixel Fold models.<\/p>\n

In July, Samsung’s latest foldable and flippable models, the Galaxy Z Fold7 and Galaxy Z Flip7<\/a>, hit a milestone. The company said total preorders for both models were up 25% compared to previous generations.<\/p>\n

That momentum reflects broader gains. Research firm Canalys estimated that Samsung’s smartphone shipments to the US surged 38% year over year during the second quarter, while Google’s shipments grew 13%, and Motorola’s edged up 2%.<\/p>\n

Apple’s smartphone shipments, by contrast, outpaced competitors by volume but fell 11% year over year, according to the Canalys report. The company front-loaded shipments earlier in the year, ahead of looming tariffs.<\/p>\n

One giant player remains missing from the flexible phone race: Apple. Analysts say its potential entry could transform the category.<\/p>\n

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Business Insider tells the innovative stories you want to know<\/p>\n

A July analyst note from J.P. Morgan predicted Apple will launch a book-style foldable phone as part of its iPhone 18 lineup<\/a> in September 2026, based on the analysts’ supply chain checks. The analysts expect the price to be around $1,999 \u2014 matching the starting price of Samsung’s Fold7.<\/p>\n

“If Apple offers a foldable, it will unlock much greater levels of adoption in the US market,” Chatterjee said.<\/p>\n

For now, Apple can afford to wait.<\/p>\n

The iPhone continues to dominate global sales. In the first quarter of 2025, five of the 10 best-selling smartphones in the world were iPhones, market research firm Counterpoint Research found.<\/p>\n

And history suggests Apple doesn’t need to rush into the flip phone game to win. The popular Apple Watch<\/a> wasn’t the first smartwatch on the market, but it still leads the smartwatch market with 20% of global shipments in the first quarter, according to Counterpoint Research.<\/p>\n

“Apple will wait and see and won’t be afraid to be a follower in the foldable market if it detects an opportunity,” Chatterjee told Business Insider.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new wave of flippable and foldable phones is shaking up the US smartphone market, long dominated by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11922,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[257],"tags":[11496,311,1650,2006,18,11498,11500,11495,823,19,431,17,279,11499,5227,1470,11494,82,11497,3257],"class_list":{"0":"post-11921","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mobile","8":"tag-analyst","9":"tag-apple","10":"tag-business-insider","11":"tag-company","12":"tag-eire","13":"tag-flip-phone","14":"tag-foldable-smartphone-market","15":"tag-galaxy-z-fold","16":"tag-google","17":"tag-ie","18":"tag-iphone","19":"tag-ireland","20":"tag-mobile","21":"tag-momentum","22":"tag-motorola","23":"tag-samsung","24":"tag-smartphone-shipment","25":"tag-technology","26":"tag-us-smartphone-market","27":"tag-year"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11921\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}