Apple's Foldable Gamble Could Upend the Smartphone Market

The 19-Year Wait

Apple entered the foldable phone market on September 9, 2026 — 19 years after the original iPhone changed everything. The device, called the iPhone Duo, represents the company’s first attempt at a folding smartphone and arrived with all the confidence of a latecomer that already owns the world’s most valuable brand.

John Ternus, Apple’s chief design officer, did not mince words about his competitors’ products. “Other foldable devices feel like two phones awkwardly taped together,” he said at the announcement event held at Apple Park’s Steve Jobs Theater. “Only Apple can redefine the foldable experience through meticulous design and engineering.”

That framing — late but inevitable — is a classic Apple playbook. The company entered the smartwatch market years behind competitors and created the category anyway. The foldable bet follows the same logic: don’t race to be first; race to be definitive.

A Three-Way Fight

The foldable landscape Apple is entering is already crowded, and not in Apple’s favor — at least not yet.

Counterpoint Research projects that Samsung will hold a 38% global market share in foldables this year, with Apple at 25% and Huawei at 22%. Those numbers will shift as Apple’s shipment volumes ramp up, but the baseline tells the story: Samsung is the incumbent, and the Chinese and American challengers are fighting for the remaining two-thirds of the market.

Samsung’s hold on top position looks secure for now. Its Galaxy Z8 series, launched last month, is driving a sales rebound after a disappointing overall smartphone year. Counterpoint estimates that the Galaxy Z Fold8 alone accounted for roughly 57% of Z8 series sales in its first two weeks — a strong signal that consumers are gravitating toward the larger, tablet-like form factor.

But Samsung’s margin of safety may be narrower than it appears. Huawei and Xiaomi both launched new foldable devices on July 7, just two days before Apple’s announcement, in a clear bid to seize attention in a market where timing matters.

Huawei unveiled the Mate XT2, a rare tri-fold device that folds in two places to create an even larger screen. It runs on the company’s own Kirin 9050 Pro processor. Xiaomi introduced the XiaoMi 18 Fold, an ultra-wide clamshell design that folds to roughly passport size, powered by the company’s Xring 03 chip and featuring memory from domestic supplier CXMT — a sign that China is pushing hard to localize its smartphone supply chain at the premium end.

Why This Market Matters

The global smartphone industry is flat. Shipments have stalled, and most manufacturers are scraping for growth in an increasingly saturated market. Foldables are the exception.

Counterpoint projects that cumulative foldable shipments worldwide will surpass 100 million units by the end of 2026 — a milestone that would represent meaningful revenue in a segment where average selling prices remain well above the rest of the market. Foldables currently make up only about 2% of total smartphone shipments, which is precisely why the opportunity is so large: there is almost nowhere to go but up.

The key variable is whether Apple’s entry accelerates that growth enough to change the trajectory of the entire industry. If foldables move from a niche luxury to a mainstream premium choice — and Apple has a track record of pulling off that kind of repositioning — the ripple effects would touch every major smartphone maker.

Who Wins, Who Loses

Samsung wins if it can maintain its 38% share while Apple ramps production. The company’s first-mover advantage — it shipped the world’s first commercial foldable in 2019 — has given it a head start in developer ecosystems, hinge durability, and consumer trust. Those advantages are real but not insurmountable.

Apple wins if it can convince foldable-hesitant users that the form factor is worth the premium and the learning curve. The iPhone Duo’s AI positioning — Ternus explicitly framed the device as “the personal device for the AI era” — suggests Apple is betting that software integration, not hardware novelty, will be its differentiator. That is a reasonable bet. AI features that require larger screens and more processing power are natural fits for foldables.

Huawei and Xiaomi win by default if they can ship volume at competitive prices while Western brands fight over the premium tier. Both companies are already deep into their own semiconductor independence efforts. The Kirin and Xring chips, paired with CXMT memory in Xiaomi’s case, reduce exposure to export controls and supply chain disruption — an advantage that could widen as geopolitical tensions affect component availability.

Chinese consumers are the early battleground. Huawei’s tri-fold Mate XT2 and Xiaomi’s wide-format 18 Fold are designed to compete directly with Samsung and Apple in a market where domestic brands already enjoy strong loyalty and distribution advantages. Apple faces an uphill battle in China, where regulatory restrictions and local preferences complicate any direct confrontation.

What Comes Next

The next six months will be telling. Apple’s Fold8 competitor and the broader competitive dynamics will become clear as shipping data rolls in. But the structural shift is already underway: foldables are no longer a Samsung problem. They are the central strategic question for every major smartphone maker.

The companies that treated foldables as a gimmick in 2023 are now scrambling to match features introduced two years ago. The companies that bet on them early — Samsung, and increasingly Huawei — are reaping the rewards of a market that is growing faster than anything else in smartphones. Apple’s arrival doesn’t change that trajectory. It confirms it.

The question is no longer whether foldables will grow. It is how much faster, and who gets left behind.