Last updated: September 2026. Editorial Team — researched using reporting from DIGITIMES, Bloomberg, and CNN Business. See “Sources & Methodology” for our full source list.
Quick Answer
Global foldable smartphone shipments are projected to top 27 million units in 2026, according to DIGITIMES’ industry coverage, as Apple’s entry into the category with its first foldable iPhone combines with continued momentum from Samsung, Huawei, Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo, and Motorola. The launch capped a genuinely unusual month for the smartphone industry: more than 20 phones from nearly every major manufacturer landed within the same four-week September window, as brands raced to get ahead of each other’s biggest hardware releases of the year.
Why Apple’s Entry Changes the Category’s Trajectory
DIGITIMES’ September 14 industry report frames the shipment growth specifically as a consequence of combined momentum following Apple’s foldable launch, with established players Samsung, Huawei, Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo, and Motorola all contributing alongside Apple’s own volume to push the category above 27 million units for the year. That pattern matches a well-established precedent in Apple’s product history: the company has repeatedly entered categories other manufacturers pioneered, then used its scale and ecosystem to expand the category’s overall market significantly once it participates, a dynamic that played out previously with wireless earbuds and smartwatches.
Photo by Atahan Demir via Pexels
The iPhone Duo’s Own Numbers
Apple’s own foldable, the iPhone Duo, launched September 9 at $1,999, with CEO John Ternus describing it during his first product keynote as bringing an entirely new design while preserving the core iPhone experience users expect. Bloomberg’s coverage of the launch event frames Apple’s ambition directly: the company is betting that an entirely new hardware category can reinvigorate growth for its largest product line at a moment when overall smartphone market growth has slowed industry-wide. Fortune’s earlier reporting on pre-launch expectations had cited Apple’s own internal sales target at approximately 50 million units for the device specifically, a genuinely ambitious figure given that total industry-wide foldable shipments across every manufacturer combined were estimated at roughly 15.8 million units as recently as 2023.
A Genuinely Crowded Launch Calendar
What made September 2026 specifically unusual wasn’t just Apple’s entry, but how many competing launches landed in the same narrow window. Industry tracking identifies more than 20 phones launching within the month across nearly every major manufacturer: the iPhone 18 Pro series alongside Apple’s foldable, the Xiaomi 18 series and Xiaomi 18 Fold, the Vivo X500 series, the Oppo Find X10 series, the Honor Magic9 series, the Huawei Mate 90 series, the iQOO 16 series, and the Poco F9 series, among others. Part of that clustering reflects deliberate timing shifts across the industry: Huawei moved its Mate series launch up from its traditional November slot specifically to get ahead of competing flagship releases, while Xiaomi used the same window to introduce its in-house Xring O3 chip across two device families simultaneously.
Samsung’s Response: Refinement Over Reinvention
Samsung, the category’s longest-established player, chose evolutionary rather than dramatic changes for its own current-generation foldable amid the newly intensified competition. Independent review coverage from Stuff describes the Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra as maintaining Samsung’s position at the top of the category through a trio of capable cameras and a bigger battery, even as a higher price point tempers the overall improvement somewhat. That measured, incremental approach stands in contrast to Apple’s more dramatic single-category-defining entry, illustrating two genuinely different competitive strategies playing out within the same product category simultaneously.
Photo by Airam Dato-on via Pexels
A Notable Engineering Differentiator: The Hidden Camera
Among the specific technical details distinguishing Apple’s approach from competitors, CNN Business’s coverage of the launch event highlights the iPhone Duo’s under-display selfie camera, positioned entirely beneath the inner screen itself rather than occupying a visible cutout or notch. That represents a genuinely notable engineering choice, since several competing manufacturers had previously experimented with similar under-display camera technology on their own foldables before moving away from it due to image-quality compromises, making Apple’s decision to revive and refine the approach a meaningful bet that those earlier technical limitations have since been resolved.
What This Means for the Broader Smartphone Market
- Foldables remain a small but rapidly growing slice of the overall market: Even at 27 million-plus units projected for 2026, foldables represent a modest fraction of total global smartphone shipments, though the growth rate significantly outpaces the broader, largely flat smartphone market.
- Apple’s entry validates the category for mainstream buyers: Historical precedent from earbuds and smartwatches suggests Apple’s participation tends to expand a category’s overall addressable market, not just redistribute existing foldable buyers toward Apple specifically.
- Competing strategies are genuinely diverging: Samsung’s incremental refinement approach and Apple’s more dramatic single-model entry represent two different bets about what drives foldable purchase decisions, and 2026 sales data should offer an early read on which resonates more with buyers.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many foldable smartphones are expected to ship in 2026?
Global foldable smartphone shipments are projected to exceed 27 million units in 2026, driven by combined momentum from Apple’s new entry alongside established players including Samsung, Huawei, Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo, and Motorola.
How much does Apple’s foldable iPhone cost?
The iPhone Duo, Apple’s first foldable, launched at $1,999 on September 9, 2026.
Why did so many phones launch in September 2026?
More than 20 phones from nearly every major manufacturer launched within the same month, partly due to deliberate timing shifts, including Huawei moving its Mate series launch earlier than its traditional November slot to get ahead of competing releases.
What distinguishes the iPhone Duo’s camera from competitors?
Its selfie camera sits entirely beneath the inner display with no visible cutout, a technology some competitors had previously tried and abandoned due to image-quality limitations Apple’s design aims to have resolved.
Sources & Methodology
This article draws on reporting from: DIGITIMES’ September 14, 2026 coverage of foldable smartphone shipment projections; Bloomberg’s coverage of Apple’s September 9, 2026 foldable iPhone launch event; CNN Business’s live coverage of the Apple event, including technical details on the iPhone Duo’s camera design; Fortune’s pre-launch reporting on Apple’s internal sales targets; and Stuff’s review coverage of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra. Figures and projections reflect the most recently published information as of this article’s last-updated date.
This article is for informational purposes and does not constitute investment advice.