TECH

The foldable mobile market is still expensive and small

Last month, China's Honor and Oppo also launched their own foldable models, but analysts still don't see exactly how much of a chance the expensive foldable market has.

Running after Samsung, which has been ahead for a good few years, this year even more manufacturers will appear on the international market with foldable smartphones, but analysts are still questioning how successful the category can be, given the high price of the devices, and it is still not to their clear uses and benefits. According to Ben Wood, head of research company CCS Insight, it is still not possible to talk about a mature category.

In 2019, the first smartphone with a bendable display intended for consumers appeared in the form of the Samsung Galaxy Fold, and with this the first wave of devices that still struggled with many childhood diseases reached the market. Over the past four years, new models have been rolled out one after the other, as a result of which the South Korean manufacturer managed to cover 80 percent of the global foldable market in 2022, according to market researcher Canalys. Analysts expect sales to grow 111 percent to 30 million devices in 2023 — but don't be fooled by that, as it's still just one percent of the overall smartphone market.

Following Samsung, the Chinese Oppo showed the Find N2 Flip last month, and Huawei's spinoff brand, Honor, also came out with the Magic Vs in international markets. Motorola will introduce a new version of the foldable Razr later this year, while the announcement of Apple's long-rumored foldable iPad, which, unlike its competitors, will be a foldable tablet, rather than a mobile, seems to be getting closer.

The CEO of Honor, George Zhao, said last week that there are still many challenges related to the foldable device, including the battery capacity, the weight of the device and, of course, the high price. The Chinese Magic Vs product is expected to cost $1,600 upon release, which is approximately HUF 567,000 net. This also raises the bar for the top category: while in 2020 models more than $800 accounted for 11 percent of the entire device market, in 2022 this was already 18 percent.

Runar Bjørhovde, an analyst at Canalys, believes that foldable devices serve to strengthen the image of a specific brand rather than support large sales figures, and by now the initial wow factor may have subsided, they are less interesting and surprising than the astonishing novelty of a few years ago looking models. As developments progress, the price should drop over time, and the lower price point will be especially crucial for other manufacturers to compete with Samsung at all.

Author: Zsuzsanna Dömös