Sales of Samsung's Foldable Phones Have Nosedived in China

The latest figures from IDC shows that Samsung's share in China's foldable smartphone market was 5.9% in Q1 2024. At one point, Samsung was pulling in a quarterly foldable market share of nearly 30% in China. From a report: It essentially came in dead last, as Samsung finds itself comprehensively beaten by the handful of companies that make foldable phones. This is also a significant decline over the previous year when Samsung's share was at 11%.

Sales of Samsung's Foldable Phones Have Folded

[ole_timer]

...fixed the headline...

Re: Sales of Samsung's Foldable Phones Have Folded

[50000BTU_barbecue]

With jokes like that, I think creimer may still be alive...

Re:

[backslashdot]

Overall foldable phone sales are INCREASING by a lot: "In the first quarter of this year, the total size of China’s foldable smartphone market was 1.86 million units, up 83% from last year."

Re:

[fahrbot-bot]

...fixed the headline...

It'll be ironic if folding the foldable unit ups their market share -- due to increased decreasing availability. :-)

Re:

[dbialac]

I've owned all 4 Z Flips. I have to say, don't buy the 5. The 5 represents a manufacturer listening to the reviewers instead of people who use them day to day. The 5 has a large screen on the front when it's closed, completely defeating the benefit of a folding phone: a sturdy place to put the screen if you drop the phone. I went back to the 4 from the 5 because of this. With the original, I was in the hospital for 5 weeks. Nurses kept pulling the tray out and causing the phone to drop on the floor over and

Re:

[Tablizer]

Is there a Nosedive brand phone? It could lead to a fun dual headline: "Nosedive Phones Folded, and Foldable Phones Nosedived"

Price

[GoJays]

I like the idea of a foldable phone to help reduce the footprint of the device, but not at a $2000 (Canadian) price point. I imagine many others are in the same boat. Cool tech, just too expensive for the average user.

Re:

[dbialac]

The Z Flips are much better. They easily fit in your pocket and unfold into a full size phone. I've owned all 4 Z Flips and recommend any model except for the 5.

Re:

[Tablizer]

> I've owned all 4 Z Flips and recommend any model except for the 5.

Four? Either they don't last long, or you have a phone fetish, and thus not a representative test customer.

Re:

[dbialac]

I'd only be 3, but my 5 was stolen and I replaced it with a 4.

Re:

[jonadab]

We're talking about the China market, so yeah, it's gonna be price. The Samsung model has whatever price it has, and there'll be a Songsom (or maybe Sumsang) phone for 30% less, and a Huawei one for less than that (because it's subsidized), and various trash brands no one has ever heard of selling for *much* less (because they have no QA at all and cut every corner it is possible to cut).

Amazing

[Penguinoflight]

The Chinese don't want to spend their annual salary on a phone known to fall apart just so they can look cooler than their neighbor?

Should be mentioned in the summary - nationalism

[SuperKendall]

I think it's such a key part of the overall article it really should have been brought into the summary as well - the reason for the drop is not necessarily anything Samsung has done, but because there is a trend of Chinese people preferring to buy Chinese made products - so the top spot has been taken by Huawei.

Re:

[Tablizer]

> Chinese people preferring to buy Chinese made products

It's possibly the gov't is pushing local sales in light of the Chip Wars et al. Otherwise, why were Samsung's sales higher not too long ago?

> the top spot has been taken by Huawei.

Are Huawei's foldable models any good? If they perfected folding tech, maybe Samsung or Google should license it rather than rely on their own.

Re:

[Tablizer]

I still don't see how this answers the original claim "[It's because] Chinese people prefer...to buy Chinese made products", as Samsung foldables used to sell well. Did they suddenly get nationalism? Is the sales change a change in nationalism feelings, or better competition in China? If the first, what changed it? Perhaps you meant to say squabbles with the USA triggered general nationalism in China, spilling over into Korean products?

Re:

[SuperKendall]

All details it would be nice if the article had!

They imply it was more nationalism than product quality but really offer no proof.

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[DrMrLordX]

Price is a consideration. Huawei foldables are likely much cheaper. Samsung probably has better hardware specs.

Missed Key Part of Article - the Why

[Koreantoast]

The OP left out a key element of the article, that a lot of this is being driven by "patriotic consumption" with Chinese consumers actively prioritizing Chinese companies if they have a "good enough" equivalent product. This, combined with aggressive technology investment, IP theft, and a willingness to sell at massive losses (with government subsidies) to drive competition out business (dumping) spells out long term problems for Samsung, and indeed most non-Chinese consumer electronics providers in China.

Samsung's foldable phones did have the technological edge initially but the Chinese manufacturers have since caught up. Moreover, the geopolitical factors that have brought Samsung's overall share in the Chinese phone market to 0% have also dented its foldable share.

There's a trend of “patriotic consumption” in China as consumers actively prioritize buying from local Chinese companies. So even if Samsung's foldables may be better, a lot of customers would opt for Chinese foldable phones instead. That's something Samsung might find difficult to reverse since there's only so much it can do to convince consumers. As it stands, there may be more pain in store for Samsung in China.

Of course they have

[WindBourne]

China is NOT a free nation. When Xi says to do something, all of the businesses and many of the citizens do EXACTLY what he says ( amazing what a bullet to the head of citizens will do for an authoritarian ).
This is why western companies are being destroyed by CHina and when the west fights back, then China simply denies them sales in their nation, while at the same time, dumping on foreign markets to destroy their sales there.

And yet, idiots will continue to say the same thing as the paid chinese astroturfers/trolls say. Sad.

Re:

[larryjoe]

Bullshit. If this was the reason there would be no Apple or Samsung phones being sold there at all.

Apple and Tesla have struck deals with the Chinese. Tesla got an exemption to the rule to be half owned by a Chinese company in order to sell in China. In exchange, Tesla is beholden to Chinese whims. Tesla sales in China can disappear overnight, which is why Tesla must obey edicts from China. Similarly for Apple. They get to sell in China, but their sales can also disappear overnight. What happens when you don't strike deals with the Chinese government? Ask Google.

Re: Of course they have

[subie]

Yet you'll do exactly as the media tells you.

Re:

[DrMrLordX]

Which Western companies? Apple? Google? Samsung isn't in the West.

Crease-Phones

[GotNoRice]

No one wants a phone with a huge crease down the center of the screen. Most smart people knew this would be an issue from the day these phones were announced, and despite marketing claiming that it wouldn't be an issue, of course it became an issue.

Not what this story is about

[virtig01]

This story is about Samsung losing market share against *other* folding phone manufacturers, not folding phones vs. non-folding phones.

Re:

[sinkskinkshrieks]

The problem is megacorps have thousands of drones who confidently believe in absurd features.

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[ghoul]

Its not an absurd feature. With the amount of spam calls and robocallers nowadays , I get a strange satisfaction by hanging up by folding the phone. Almost as satisfying as slamming down a landline receiver. You cant do that with a normal cellphone. You have to gently push the cancel button. My Flip 5 is worth the price just for that satisfaction.

You guys are dummies

[backslashdot]

The story isn't that foldable sales have decreased or that people don't want 'em. It's that there are Chinese alternatives undercutting Samsung. It's actually an argument in favor of foldable. This is like when in 1999 the atavista search engine started losing market share to Google. Back then you idiots would have said this means search engines are a fad. "In the first quarter of this year, the total size of China’s foldable smartphone market was 1.86 million units, up 83% from last year."

It's CHINA, what do you expect?

[p51d007]

China is controlled by the CCP. The people in China are controlled by the CCP. Their subjects (as opposed to being called citizens) have "credit" scores that are based on a number of things. I'm sure they are also told, "for the benefit of the state", YOU should buy this, and not that. Being good little slaves, they will do it.

Gimmick falls flat in X country

[sinkskinkshrieks]

No shit. It's a useless feature.

Huawei Mate60, X3 and Pura70

[khchung]

Huawei finds itself at the top of the list with a 44.1% market share. Honor came in second with 26.7%, Vivo third with 12.6% and Oppo in fourth with 9%.

While the article did mention that Huawei is getting a large portion of market share, its purported "patriotic consumption" is just a bad attempt at trying to hide the real reason -- Huawei's new top end phones, Mate60 [wikipedia.org] and Pura70 [huaweicentral.com], are great phones.

Some may recall the Mate60 and Mate X3 [huawei.com] (also a foldable phone) released last year, did anything from Samsung can make satellite call yet? And then this month Huawei just released the Pura70. Is it any surprised that other high end phone makers will lose market share when one released a new flagship phone?

Did newspapers call it "patriotic consumption" when Americans queued up to buy new iPhones or new Tesla? Just call a spade a spade, Huawei's new top end phones dominated the China market because Samsung's current offerings are not good enough to compete head on.

Re:

[AnOnyxMouseCoward]

To be fair, one doesn't prevent the other. Huawei can have good products, but Samsung's loss could still have been accelerated by patriotic consumption. And I can understand the patriotic consumption given the recent tension with the Western world, even if it's now misdirected towards Samsung.

natural

[nicubunu]

It was bound to happen once all the major Chinese phone manufacturers began selling their own foldable phones. Samsung isn't really competitive on price/performance.

#GSOD ?

[AncalagonTotof]

Sorry, I can't help but ask whether it's related to the #GSOD [youtube.com], again ?

One bit I don't see...

[Maury Markowitz]

"The latest data from IDC shows that Samsung's share in China's foldable smartphone market was 5.9% in Q1 2024."

If you click through to the original article, I see that the total sales of foldable phones in China was 1.86 million units. A bit of poking about suggests sales are on the order of 275 million a year. So the folding phone represents less than 1% of their phone market.

So... who cares? It's not like anything is really changing here.

Re:

[Maury Markowitz]

Ok, I did find it:

"According to market research firm IDC on April 27, Samsung’s foldable phone market share in China’s foldable smartphone market was 5.9% in the first quarter of this year, placing the company in fifth place. Considering the limited number of foldable phone manufacturers, this essentially puts Samsung at the bottom of the list. Samsung’s market share in China’s foldable phone segment was 11% last year, suggesting a significant decline over a one-year period."

No, it d