We're learning today that Samsung Electronics, the powerhouse of the foldable smartphone market, has lost its top position to Huawei in the foldable smartphone market for the first quarter of this year, reports Business Korea.

On May 23, market research firm Tech Insights announced that Huawei has overtaken Samsung Electronics to claim the number one spot in the global foldable phone market for the first quarter of this year.

Huawei’s market presence surged by 257% compared to the same period last year, surpassing Samsung. Following Huawei, the rankings were Samsung Electronics and China’s Honor.

Huawei secured its lead in the overall foldable phone market by dominating the segment for vertically folding devices known as book-style foldables. While Samsung dominated clamshell foldables, this segment of the market sells less than book-style form factor. In fact for Q1 2024 in China, book-style foldables were up 91% over 2023 whereas claimshell foldables only grew 1%, according to Counterpoint's latest foldables report on May 28, 2024.

Counterpoint further noted that "Foldable smartphones have been a key strategic focus for Chinese smartphone OEMs since early 2020. These OEMs hope that the new form factor will help revive the otherwise stagnant smartphone market and expand their penetration in the premium segment.

There was a significant surge in book-type foldables as consumers have started to favor this form factor over the clamshell type because of the wider range of use cases they offer. The large screen allows for better multitasking capabilities, enabling users to run multiple apps at the same time and switch back and forth more efficiently. The almost tablet-like experience when unfolded makes them ideal for work-related tasks such as editing documents and managing emails, as well as for entertainment activities like watching videos and gaming. Additionally, after many generations, book-type foldables have also become thinner and lighter, making them more appealing to consumers."

Counterpoint added that "Huawei has a strong foothold in China’s foldables market and was one of the first OEMs to launch foldable products. In Q1 2024, Huawei led sales in both book-type and clamshell-type foldables, thus marking a resurgence. The increase in Huawei’s market share was primarily due to the introduction of 5G-enabled foldables for the first time, with the book-type Mate X5 and the clamshell-type Pocket 2 becoming bestsellers immediately upon release. Both foldables are powered by Huawei’s latest self-developed 5G-enabled SoC, the same chipset that drives the Mate 60 series."

Business Korea added that "Examining the performance by company, Lenovo’s Motorola showed a remarkable annual growth rate of 1260% with its clamshell foldable Razr series. Other notable growth rates were recorded by Honor (+480%), Vivo (+331%), and Xiaomi (+41%). In contrast, only Samsung Electronics (-25%) and Oppo (-75%) experienced a decline in market share.

The Chinese foldable phone market exhibited a growth of 94% year-on-year. Chinese consumers’ preference for fold-style phones over flip-style ones drove the expansion of the foldable phone market. Similarly, the North American foldable phone market grew by 143% compared to the same period last year, although flip-style products remained dominant there. In North America, Motorola surpassed Samsung Electronics to take the top spot, with Samsung in second place and OnePlus in third."

Premium Foldable smartphones helped China's smartphone vendors in Mainland China to overtake Apple in Q1-24. From second place to fifth place the margin was in tenths of a percentage point, enough for foldables to have made the difference, at least for calendar Q1-24.  

We tried to contact TechInsights to verify their data but they're promise to us that they would send a link to their report never materialized. The reason for our request is because it's very likely that the stats may actually be for either China + Hong Kong or just Mainland China and not globally as is being reported on by Business Korea. A report on foldables by Statista posted just last week clearly showed that Samsung remains the "Global" leader with 60.4% vs. Huawei at 19.8%, which  completely contradicting the report from Business Korea.

However, with that said, Huawei being the leader in foldables in just Mainland China is still an important statistic as it likely played a major part in overtaking Apple in Q1. All the more reason for Apple to add a book-style to their iPhone line-up or  push to get their new iPhone SE out on time in early 2025.  The latter is likely to be Apple's strategy. Yet if foldables continue on their current tear in the market over the next year or two, Apple may not have the luxury of sitting on the sidelines, as book-style foldables are considered premium smartphones, Apple's key market segment.