Foldable phone shipments are on the rise, but North America’s biggest brands are lagging behind

What do you want to know

• Huawei was the leader in global foldable phone shipments for the first time in the first quarter of 2024.
• The company overtook Samsung, which was the previous shipping leader, amid concerns Samsung was becoming complacent with its Galaxy Z Fold and Z Flip brands.
• Honor and Motorola have seen success outside China, a sign that North American brands are struggling to attract buyers.

According to the latest reports from analyst firms Search for counterpoint And IDC, the smartphone industry appears to have fully recovered after a period of slowdown. The overall market is expected to grow 4% year-over-year, and foldable phones are particularly seeing widespread growth in shipments. The interesting part of the data, which is based on shipment results from the first quarter of 2024, is that the biggest players in the foldable sector in North America are not the growing ones.

If you follow the foldable phone market in the US, this probably isn’t that surprising. Samsung was the only major manufacturer to make foldable phones widely available in North America for years, and that only recently changed with the emergence of Google and OnePlus last year. Calling the industry competitive may not be entirely true. OnePlus reportedly has no plans to release a OnePlus Open successor in the near future, and the Google Pixel Fold is still a flawed device. Then there’s Samsung, a company that seems to be resting on its laurels with the Z Fold and Z Flip brands.

In this context, it makes sense that other brands are overtaking Samsung in terms of foldable product shipments and growth. For the first time, Huawei is the leader, which may shock North American users. Foreign brands are not only winning in China. Companies like Honor and Motorola are seeing success in other regions. All this will put a lot of pressure on brands working in the North American market to improve, especially Samsung with the upcoming Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Z Flip 6 series.

What the numbers say

The foldable shipment figures for Q1 2023 and Q1 2024, provided by Counterpoint, paint two completely different pictures. Last year, Samsung dominated the first quarter, accounting for 58% of all foldable phone shipments worldwide. This is important to remember because Samsung’s slowdown in Q1 2024 cannot be attributed to the Z Fold and Z Flip release cycles. Although Samsung will likely see success after the launch of the Z Fold 6 and Z Flip 6, the company performed much better under the same conditions last year.

Let’s go back to the first quarter of this year and the situation is completely reversed. Samsung’s foldable phone shipments declined 42% year-over-year, and the company accounted for just 23% of global shipments in the first quarter of 2024. In comparison, Huawei’s shipments increased 257%. year over year, allowing the company to claim first place. spot with a 35% share of global shipments.

Besides the movement among manufacturers, the type of foldable phones purchased is also changing. In the first quarter of 2024, book-style foldable phones accounted for 55% of all foldable phones shipped. This is the first time since 2021 that book-style foldables account for more sales than clamshell foldables. Together, all the data indicates that consumers around the world are buying foldables other than those sold in North America.

Honor and Motorola win outside China

Huawei is an interesting case because while we cannot discredit the company’s success, it is impossible to talk about it without considering government sanctions. Tensions between the United States and China have made it difficult, if not impossible, to purchase and use Huawei devices outside of China. In some ways, it’s more impressive that Huawei is succeeding despite trade restrictions. However, in this context, Huawei is not Really in competition with North American brands.

Honor and Motorola, on the other hand, are successful outside of China. Both companies experienced expansive growth between Q1 2023 and Q1 2024. Motorola’s foldable phone shipments increased 1,473% year-over-year, driven by the company’s Razr Plus and Razr 2023 devices. ‘last year. Honor’s shipments are up 460% year-over-year, which remains an extremely impressive number. According to Counterpoint, Honor’s Magic V2 foldable phone was the best-selling foldable phone in Western Europe in the first quarter of 2024.

Samsung’s Z Fold 5 and Z Flip 5 are both natural competitors to the Honor Magic V2 and Motorola Razr, respectively. The fact that consumers are turning instead to Honor and Motorola phones shows how far Samsung is falling behind.

This is not surprising, considering the state of North American foldables

Samsung was the first to really make foldable phones mainstream, and it has been the foldable market leader since the beginning. However, it’s clear that Samsung foldables no longer offer the most advanced technologies. The last time we really saw an upgrade to a Z Fold device was with the Z Fold 3, as the Z Fold 4 and Z Fold 5 were both iterative improvements. Other phones have completely caught up, with the Honor Magic V2 offering a form factor that’s about as thin as a panel-style phone.

There’s no better example than the OnePlus Open, which entered the US market as a carbon copy of the OPPO Find N3. The OnePlus Open is widely considered the best foldable phone in the US, and that’s thanks to OPPO technology. If Samsung, the South Korean electronics giant that has dominated the North American foldable device market, wants to return to the top, it will need to make future foldable devices competitive with those from Chinese brands.