The world’s top smartphone vendor is seriously struggling in the no-longer-thriving foldable segment. That’s been made abundantly clear by many market reports published over the last year or so, but if you expected the Galaxy Z Fold 7 and Z Flip 7 to put their makers back on track for global sales growth, you might have another thing coming.
That’s at least according to the inside sources consulted by a reputable Korean news outlet, who claim (translated here) that Samsung has had to revise down its initial production goals for this summer’s new Z-series devices several times in the past few weeks alone.
Things are looking especially bad for the Z Fold 7
Equipped with two massive screens (both of which are purportedly larger than what the Z Fold 6 has to offer), as well as an upgraded 200MP primary rear-facing camera and a state-of-the-art Snapdragon 8 Elite processor, the Galaxy Z Fold 7 sounds like an absolute beast and a big box-office hit in the making.
That’s apparently what Samsung thought at first too, planning to manufacture 800,000 units in time for next month’s launch. The June production target set in “early May” was reportedly reduced to 770,000 by the end of last month and now 630,000. That’s a pretty major drop signaling… nothing good for the Korea-based tech giant, which must have remembered its book-style foldables are never as popular as clamshell models.
The impressive Galaxy Z Fold 7 is unlikely to sell like hotcakes.
But the company’s hopes for the Galaxy Z Flip 7 are not as optimistic today as in early May or late May either, going down from 590,000 to 550,000 units for this month’s initial production run. That’s not a huge reduction, but then again, Samsung started with a rather conservative goal for its next ultra-high-end flip phone, at least compared to the aforementioned Z Fold 7.
The other flip-style foldable expected to see daylight in July, meanwhile, is barely looking at a June production of 160,000 units. That’s not only a disappointingly low number for a first-of-a-kind gadget like the Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE, aka “Z Flip 7 popular model”, but it’s also down from a 210,000 target reportedly set around a month ago and 170,000 units projected as of late May.
These are not sales predictions though
That’s a crucial thing to keep in mind and highlight before you start prematurely calling Samsung’s next foldables box-office flops. It’s impossible to know exactly how consumers will respond to the Galaxy Z Fold 7, Z Flip 7, and Z Flip 7 FE once they’re actually released, but clearly, their makers have strong reasons to believe the three new devices won’t set the world on fire.
The Galaxy Z Flip 6 and Z Fold 6, in case you’re wondering, racked up an estimated 2.9 and 2.1 million unit sales respectively within five months of their commercial debut (according to a third-party source, at least), and while Samsung certainly didn’t have those kinds of numbers ready by July 2024, it’s hard to imagine the Galaxy Z Flip 7, for instance, will ever be able to get anywhere near the 3 million global sales milestone.
All might not be lost for the Galaxy Z Flip 7 just yet.
The most concerning part of all that for Samsung is that the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Z Flip 6 are widely considered moderate hits (at best) compared to the Z Fold 5 and Z Flip 5, so the company’s foldable popularity issues are clearly getting worse and worse with each new generation.
Adrian, a mobile technology enthusiast since the Nokia 3310 era, has been a dynamic presence in the tech journalism field, contributing to Android Authority, Digital Trends, and Pocketnow before joining PhoneArena in 2018. His expertise spans across various platforms, with a particular fondness for the diversity of the Android ecosystem. Despite the challenges of balancing full-time parenthood with his work, Adrian’s passion for tech trends, running, and movies keeps him energized. His commitment to mid-range smartphones has led to an eclectic collection of devices, saved from personal bankruptcy by his preference for ‘adequate’ over ‘overpriced’.
