Comment by danpalmer
9 hours ago
I don't think this is a fair comparison, they are different markets – most people need a smartphone today, nobody really needs a PS5. A better comparison is to say that of smartphones sold in 2025 (~1.65bn), foldables represented ~1%. That's pretty niche.
I think it's a great comparison, you don't buy an expensive folding phone if you just need a smartphone, it's a luxury good just like a PS5.
I have a friend who is not at all into luxury stuff but bought one because he never used a computer and was appealed by the screen size to make the administrative stuff he was struggling to do with a regular smartphone.
Having said that he is also known to make some bad purchasing decision and living in constant debt.
A $500 console is not a "luxury good", unless you also count having a flat screen TV as a luxury good. Games is one of the most common things done in a household today
A $2000 phone (which will never be $2000, it's the minimum spec) to watch youtube videos and enjoy apps with bad layouts is in another category entirely.
That’s pre-Apple’s entry into the market, which will triple the size of the foldables market in the next 12-18 months. And cnsidering how bad foldables have been and how much better they’ll get, that’s surely not the ceiling.
Apple sold ~250m of those ~1.65bn, so if you work on it being Android only, then foldables are ~1.4% instead of ~1.1%.
For the foldable market to triple in size, Apple would need to sell 40m this year, which if we assume a flat year for overall numbers (likely given rising costs this cycle and the trend of flattening sales anyway), then it would mean the fold taking 16% of all iPhone sales. For a ~2500-3200 USD phone (base model, international pricing), that's not happening.
Why would you think foldables are about to get a lot better? They have improved over the last 10 years, but the original caveats are pretty much all still there, and the iPhone Duo doesn't appear to improve on any of them in any meaningful way.
> For the foldable market to triple in size, Apple would need to sell 40m this year
For the record, it seems like the production will not get close to 40m phones this year. According to most outlets, it is backordered to January and Apple had to ramp production higher than anticipated. I highly doubt that it will literally 3x the market this year. But the pattern has been, excepting the Vision Pro, that when Apple enters a market, it suddenly proves the viability to other market entrants, and to the general public who view it as a mature market.
> but the original caveats are pretty much all still there
I don't think this is true at all. A significant portion of people complain about the crease, light reflections, and poor software. It seems like initial reviews don't find problems due to the "nano-texture" display (probably achievable in third-parties with a matte screen protector). As for software, once apps have been optimized for Duo, I expect that designs will carry over to similar form-factor folding devices on Android.
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>For a ~2500-3200 USD phone (base model, international pricing), that's not happening.
Honestly I have no idea. To me spending 800usd for a phone is already completely crazy yet apparently smartphones in the 1000 to 1400 range are plenty already. What is the ceiling at which volume will go down drastically? I honestly don't know.
Same for transportation, I don't understand why people accept paying north of 35kusd on a vehicle and that is before the additional yearly expenses. Yet there are plenty of cars sold in the 50k and above. I bought mine second hand for 6.5kusd and even if it died tomorrow after 2 years of use it would still have been a better deal than leasing even the smallest and cheapest new cars on the market for 4 years. Yet I still see plenty of brand new cars in the street every day (and I am thanskful of that, otherwise the second hand market would disappear) so plenty of people are willing to buy really expensive stuff whenever much cheaper alternatives exist.