A recent report from DSCC (Display Supply Chain Consultants) reveals some bad news for foldable phones. While according to the report, the foldable smartphone market registered its first year-on-year (YoY) decline in Q4 2022. In addition to this, in terms of numbers, the shipment of foldable smartphones has dropped by 48% in Q4 2022 as compared to Q3 2022 and 26% compared to Q4 2021 respectively.
Talking about the numbers, then 3.1 million foldable smartphones were shipped from the start of October 2022 to the end of December 2022. However, Q4 2022 records a downfall in shipment. While the overall 2022 shipments number increased by 62% to 12.9 million units. Simultaneously, Samsung, as always, is on top in the foldable smartphone market with a market share of 83%. The other aspect is, this number is declining when compared to Q3’s 86% and Q4 2021’s 96%.
The reason behind Samsung’s declined shares
Speaking about the reason behind Samsung’s quarter-to-quarter market share downturn can be blamed on the sharp 50% drop in foldable shipment volume in Q4 2022. This is after the launch of the fourth generation Galaxy Z Fold 4 and the Galaxy Z Flip 4 during Q3 2022. Additionally, the Q4 release of the Apple iPhone 14 series shawls the spotlight on the Samsung foldable. Thus, it results in a decline in market share for the South Korean giant.
Moving ahead, the Galaxy Z Flip 4 was the top foldable in Q4 2022. As it holds 47% of the global smartphone share. Whereas, during the same quarter of the previous year, the Galaxy Z Flip 3 holds the same position. Therefore, what we realize here as a conclusion from the trend is that people prefer to have the clamshell design. And parallelly they don’t want to spend over $1,000 on a foldable phone. Trailing behind Samsung’s top spot was Huawei in second place, which is then followed by OPPO. Apparently, this trend will be expected to continue in the current quarter as well. And the same results in a 3% year-on-year drop in handset sales worldwide.
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