Foldable smartphones aren’t that cheap. Samsung Galaxy Z Fold5 is approx $1,050 in China; $1,800 in the US and INR 1.50 lakhs in India which puts it in the ultra-premium segment and for good reasons. However, if anything that we have to follow comes from the South Korean publication The Elec, Samsung is working on a cheaper foldable Galaxy Z Fold expected to arrive in the second half of 2024.
Samsung currently has a massive market share running in double digits in China even though it has a 1% market share in the non-foldable segment. The South Korean giant has foldable rivals from Honor, Huawei, Xiaomi, Vivo, Oppo, and OnePlus although the demand for foldable phones is on the rise.
Samsung’s take on a cheaper foldable phone means there will be three models this year apart from Galaxy Z Fold6 5G and Z Flip6 5G. Note that Samsung has already squashed the possibilities that the affordable fold will lie in the mid-range segment. It means the phone will still have top-of-the-line specs although Samsung will make it less pricier. We could expect Samsung to drag down the pricing on the affordable Galaxy Fold to $1,300 (which is almost $500 lower than Z Fold5) although it is better to take it with a pinch of salt.
There are still a lot of permutations on how Samsung will achieve such a feat. We can expect cutbacks in some of the features present in the current-gen Fold5 or the upcoming Fold6 that would ultimately make a cheaper Fold6 iteration. However, there’s always a possibility that buyers could prefer a non-foldable phone instead of shelling out a huge phone that may have fewer use cases for many.
Samsung’s step to get a cheaper foldable phone is an attempt to stay competitive in a market that is destined to grow immensely. We already saw the revival of Galaxy FE-branded phones, the Galaxy S24 series made its debut on January 17th and the Galaxy Z Fold6/ Z Flip6 is arriving in the second half of this year. This is not to forget that there are still a dozen other phones that the South Korean giant launches around the year.
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