Initially Printed: 09 JUL 25 10:00 ET
By Lisa Eadicicco, CNN
New York (CNN) — Samsung on Wednesday introduced three new foldable telephones in its newest push to popularize what the corporate believes is the way forward for smartphones.
The brand new $2,000 Galaxy Z Fold 7, $1,100 Galaxy Z Flip 7 and $900 Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE launch on July 25, with preorders starting July 9.
In the meantime, Samsung faces elevated competitors from Android rivals and is bracing for the potential arrival of Apple’s first foldable iPhone.
Samsung’s foldables give it one other card to play towards the iPhone available in the market for premium smartphones, a class that Apple sometimes dominates. Though reviews of a foldable iPhone have circulated for years, Apple has but to launch one or publicly point out intentions to take action.
Samsung has spent greater than half a decade promoting shoppers on telephones that may fold in half to both double as a pill or match extra simply into your pocket. It’s a gambit to reinvigorate curiosity in new sorts of telephones — conventional smartphones have matured, gaining few notable new options annually and leaving shoppers with little incentive to improve.
However though Samsung is essentially thought of to be the market chief, foldables have been a tricky promote; they nonetheless account for lower than 2% of the broader smartphone market, in accordance with estimates from the Worldwide Information Company and Counterpoint Analysis. And worth stays one of many greatest challenges to attracting new shoppers. Whole foldable telephone shipments are anticipated to succeed in 45.7 million models by 2028, in accordance with the IDC’s estimates, trailing the 1.2 billion smartphones shipped in 2024.
The brand new trio of foldables are Samsung’s newest try to vary that.
“We believe that now, with the launch of the Fold 7 and Flip 7, we will be nearing the tipping point of going mainstream,” Received-joon Choi, chief working officer of Samsung’s cellular expertise enterprise, stated by a translator in an interview with CNN forward of Samsung’s product launch.
What’s new with Samsung’s newest foldables
The South Korean tech big is betting that it might probably woo shoppers with slimmer designs and larger screens.
The Galaxy Z Fold 7 is lighter than the corporate’s non-folding Galaxy S25 Extremely and has an 8-inch inside display in comparison with its predecessor’s 7.6-inch show. Samsung’s new flip telephone has a bigger 4.1-inch exterior display that covers your complete entrance of the machine when closed, and a barely greater 6.9-inch display on the within.
Taken collectively, these modifications make the Galaxy Z Fold 7 and Galaxy Z Flip 7 extra carefully resemble common telephones when utilized in “bar mode” — i.e. when the Galaxy Z Fold is closed and the Galaxy Z Flip is opened.
“Obviously, this did not come about in just one year,” stated Choi. “It’s something that we have been working for quite a long time, and it involves new parts, and also new materials.”
Each telephones additionally embody new processors, though Samsung is straying from its traditional technique of utilizing the identical chip in each foldables. Citing provide chain causes, Samsung is utilizing a Qualcomm chip for the Galaxy Z Fold 7 and a Samsung’s Exynos chip for the Z Flip 7.
Samsung can be releasing a less expensive model of its flip telephone for the primary time known as the Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE, which has an identical design as Samsung’s older flip telephones and an older processor. However the Galaxy Z Fold 7 is $100 dearer than final yr’s mannequin, which the corporate attributes to {hardware} modifications just like the thinner design and better decision digicam, not tariffs.
Whereas foldable telephones have been anticipated to finally get cheaper, that’s now not the case, in accordance with Francisco Jeronimo, an analyst protecting cellular units throughout the EMEA marketplace for the IDC. He stated telephone makers like Samsung are leaning on foldables to compete with the iPhone within the premium section of the smartphone market.
“They are not really pushing prices down, which was sort of expected to happen, but they realized that despite shipping small volumes, they are (making) quite decent money out of it,” he stated.
A tool just like the Galaxy Z Fold 7, for instance, may enchantment to shoppers who could have in any other case opted for an iPhone 16 Professional Max, the biggest telephone Apple sells.
Foldables are the one Android product with out an Apple different — and there’s information to counsel that not less than some iPhone house owners are switching.
Within the quarter that led to March, 8% of US shoppers who purchased a foldable telephone had switched from an iPhone, in accordance with Shopper Intelligence Analysis Companions information offered to CNN. Choi additionally stated the change price, or individuals switching to a Samsung telephone from one other Android telephone or iPhone, is greater for its foldable telephones than common telephones.
Apple is anticipated to launch its first foldable telephone in 2026, in accordance with Bloomberg and TF Worldwide Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, though Apple has not talked about any plans to launch such a tool. Apple didn’t instantly reply to CNN’s request for remark concerning the foldable telephone reviews.
When requested about hypothesis of Apple coming into the foldables class, Choi responded: “We would welcome that.”
Samsung faces extra competitors than ever
Samsung launched its first foldable telephone in 2019 and has largely maintained the main place available in the market since. However the firm has confronted stiffer competitors from Chinese language manufacturers equivalent to Huawei, Vivo and Honor, which dominate gross sales in China — the most important marketplace for foldable telephones, in accordance with Counterpoint Analysis.
Simply days earlier than Samsung introduced its new trio of units, Honor launched a slim new foldable telephone known as the Magic V5.
Huawei additionally beat Samsung to the punch in 2024 when it launched a brand new kind of foldable telephone that bends in two locations like an accordion, offering a good bigger display almost the dimensions of an iPad when totally unfolded. Samsung has confirmed comparable idea units at commerce exhibits however has but to show these prototypes into actual merchandise.
Choi says Samsung has a brand new model of machine “that can be brought to market in the near future,” though he declined to disclose particulars or particular timing.
For now, Samsung is leaning on {hardware} upgrades and AI to distinguish its telephones from the rising competitors. It has labored with Google to optimize the best way its Gemini assistant works on the telephone’s unconventional screens. Gemini Reside, the characteristic that lets customers communicate to Google’s AI assistant conversationally, is now out there on the Z Flip 7’s cowl show, in contrast to Samsung’s earlier flip telephones. Gemini also can work throughout a number of home windows on the Z Fold 7’s tablet-sized display.
Samsung plans to collaborate with different AI firms along with Google, Choi stated, though he didn’t identify particular potential companions. Bloomberg reported final month that Samsung is near a cope with AI search engine Perplexity.
Choi sees a bigger change coming to smartphones sooner or later that entails counting on AI brokers to perform duties, like watching a film, sharing a recipe or reserving a trip, as an alternative of bouncing between apps. The corporate is working with trade companions to maneuver its smartphone software program in that path.
“I don’t know how long it’ll take, but I don’t think it’s like 10 years,” stated Choi. “I don’t think it’s like six months or a year, but I think somewhere in between. But it’s (going to) happen.”
