Sales of foldable smartphones in China set for big jump

Ti Gong

The sales of foldable smartphones in China will increase by more than 81 percent this year due to more competitive pricing, according to industry officials. This growth will occur despite a fall in sales in the overall smartphone market.

China's sales of foldable-screen smartphones will reach 2.73 million units in 2022, a year-over-year increase of 81.1 percent. International Data Corporation predicts that sales will reach 6.7 million units by 2025.

Comparatively, smartphone market sales in China declined by 11.9 percent in the third quarter of this year.

Huawei introduced the Pocket S foldable model on Wednesday, with a smaller size, clamshell fashion design, a rear primary camera for selfies, novel cooling materials and HarmonyOS 3 to attract young consumers.

Huawei produces one of every two foldable cellphones sold on the domestic market.

IDC reports that Huawei leads the foldable market category in China with a 45 percent market share, followed by Samsung with 22 percent and Vivo with 12 percent.

Huawei Pocket S will go on sale next Thursday with a starting price of 5,988 yuan (US$832) with 128 gigabytes of storage, while the 256 GB model will cost 6,448 yuan. Comparatively, models by Vivo and Samsung cost more than 9,000 yuan.

Researchers, like IDC, think that the price of foldable smartphones will drop below US$1,000 or even below US$800 in the future.

Ti Gong