Samsung’s new competitor in Google
Samsung has been dominating the global foldable smartphone market for a few years now, but it is facing a new competitor in Google, which unveiled its first foldable smartphone, the Pixel Fold, during its annual developer conference.
The phone is available for pre-order and will be shipped next month. One of the main selling points of the $1,799 Pixel Fold is its slimmer design compared to Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 4, with a thickness of 12.1mm versus 15.8mm. The Pixel Fold also has a larger battery than Samsung’s phone, with 4,821 mAh compared to 4,400 mAh, making it slightly heavier at 283 grams compared to 263 grams for Samsung.
Despite facing tougher competition, Samsung sees more competition as a positive for the foldable segment, as it can lead to a bigger and more creative ecosystem and wider market adoption. For its first foldable phone, Google optimized over 50 of its applications for the Pixel Fold’s larger display and promised to continue doing so to encourage other app developers to follow suit.
Its goal is to increase the proportion of foldable phones to half of its total smartphone sales by 2025, making them another pillar of the company alongside the Galaxy S flagship series and a key category in the premium segment. According to market researcher Canalys, Samsung accounted for about 77 percent of foldable phone shipments worldwide last year.
It believes that a successful foldable phone requires two core elements: a flexible and foldable display and a strong hinge for folding and unfolding operations. During a press briefing in Berlin, Choi Won-Joon, the former head of the flagship product R&D team at Samsung’s mobile experience division, explained that foldable phones should offer unique and valuable experiences to users that they cannot get from other smartphones. To achieve this, it developed a new hinge system called a spiral hinge, after many failed attempts.
Google’s hinge system allows the two screen halves to fold completely without any gap, and it is made of durable stainless steel. The International Data Corporation (IDC) predicted that foldable phone shipments will reach 21.4 million units in 2023, a 50% increase from the previous year, and the foldable market will grow by 50.5%, while the total smartphone market will contract by 1.1%. Samsung has not yet announced the release date for the Galaxy Z Fold 5.
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