Samsung is navigating increasingly difficult terrain in the global smartphone market, where shifting dynamics, plateauing demand, and fierce competition threaten its leadership — particularly in the foldables segment, which it helped pioneer.
While Samsung has unveiled its thinnest and lightest foldables yet — the Galaxy Z Fold7 and Flip7 — the broader market conditions paint a less optimistic picture. The company is facing a double bind: rising costs and sluggish demand. U.S. tariffs are increasing component expenses, pushing Samsung to raise prices — like the $1,999 Fold7 — at a time when consumers are hesitant to spend on experimental device formats, Reuters news report indicated.
Even more concerning is the weakening grip on its once-dominant foldables market share. According to Canalys, global foldable shipments grew 12 percent to 17.2 million units in 2024, but Samsung’s market share declined from 54 percent to 45 percent. Analysts now predict no further growth in 2025.
“This stagnation is attributed to persistently high prices, a lack of content optimised for foldable displays, and muted end-user demand,” said Jusy Hong, Senior Research Manager at Canalys (Omdia). Despite solving some hardware challenges like weight and thickness, foldables have yet to deliver a compelling reason for mainstream users to switch.
The threat from Chinese competitors is also intensifying. Huawei and Honor are making rapid gains in China, a key growth market where Samsung has little traction. Meanwhile, Apple’s entrenched ecosystem continues to dominate the premium space globally, pushing Samsung into a defensive posture.
In this context, the focus on hardware improvements — while notable — is unlikely to be enough. “Samsung has gone thinner and lighter with the Fold7 and Flip7, tackling a key criticism of foldables: bulkiness. It’s a major design win — but lasting leadership depends on redefining what foldables do, not just how they look,” said Sheng Win Chow, Senior Analyst. “The next wave of competition will come from software — how vendors use the foldable form factor to deliver truly differentiated experiences.”
Samsung’s vision of leading in AI-powered smartphones is still a work in progress. Its reliance on external partners like Google for AI integration contrasts with Apple’s more tightly controlled in-house approach, raising questions about Samsung’s ability to build a coherent, long-term innovation edge.
Worldwide GenAI spending is expected to total $644 billion in 2025, an increase of 76.4 percent from 2024, according to a forecast by Gartner.
Samsung’s smartphone shipment has touched 61.308 million in Q1-2025, 56.59 million in Q4-2024 and 61.89 million in Q1-2024.For comparison, Apple’s iPhone shipment has reached 53.89 million in Q1-2025, 76.81 million in Q4-2024 and 52.17 million in Q1-2024, Ranjit Atwal, Sr Director Analyst at Gartner, indicated.
With global smartphone growth largely flat and premium devices under pressure, Samsung’s continued push in foldables — without a clear demand breakthrough — may expose it to further market share erosion. The company must now prove it can do more than build beautiful hardware — it needs to define the software and AI experiences that justify foldables as the future, not just a futuristic niche.
Baburajan Kizhakedath
