According to the Counterpoint Research foldable tracker and foldable perception document, foldable smartphone markets in virtually all main areas displayed a powerful expansion in Q1 2023.
What drove the international folding smartphone marketplace?
The document attributes the powerful expansion within the international foldable marketplace because of expansion within the Chinese foldable marketplace. Although the Chinese general smartphone marketplace declined by way of about 8% YoY in Q1 2023, the foldable marketplace grew, surging 117% YoY to at least one.08 million gadgets.
As according to analysis analyst Woojin Son, foldable merchandise such because the OPPO N2 and Oppo N2 Flip smartphones’ grand releases continuously pique the marketplace’s passion.
“Consequently, Chinese consumers have become more familiar with foldable products compared to other regions,” mentioned Son.
each Samsung And Oppo registered a powerful Q1 2023 efficiency within the Chinese foldable marketplace. HUAWEI and Oppo led the marketplace with 27% marketplace proportion every, carefully adopted by way of Samsung with 26% proportion.
While Oppo rode the good fortune of the N2 Flip and N2 smartphones, Samsung captured the marketplace by way of freeing the W23 and W23 Flip – which might be variants of the Galaxy Z Fold 4 and Galaxy Z Flip 4, respectively.
What’s subsequent?
Senior analyst Jene Park that during 2023, there will probably be an intensified product and price battle amongst OEMs within the international foldable marketplace because of extra aggressiveness. According to Park, the 12 months can even see expanding gross sales quantity of clamshell-type foldable smartphones thru more than a few product launches.
Will apple input into foldable smartphone fray?
According to Park, Apple remains to be absent from momentary forecasts.
“However, since overall consumer response to foldable phones is improving and Apple will possibly be releasing non-phone foldable products soon, the brand’s participation in the foldable smartphone market is likely to occur after 2025,” he famous.