They’re looking at the obvious plays - the phone manufacturers like Samsung, Apple, and LG. Many investors are taking a conventional route to gain from foldable phones’ success. And I predict the industry will grow in a few years to reach a $13.8 billion market! Smart investors should be, too.Ī very small percentage of the world’s population is currently using foldable phones, but we will ultimately see 3.2 billion smartphones being replaced by foldables. It’s since sold more than two billion iPhones and turned into the world’s largest public company with a market capitalization of $2.2 trillion.Ī similar opportunity to gain market share and dominate the next-generation smartphone field is cropping up today.Īnd this time, major smartphone makers are diving in headfirst. Jim Balsillie, the co-CEO of BlackBerry (NYSE: BB) maker Research In Motion, described it as “one more entrant into an already busy space with lots of choice for consumers.”Īnd Nokia (NYSE: NOK) Chief Strategist Anssi Vanjoki said the iPhone would remain a niche product.Īpple went on to crush the competition - including Nokia and BlackBerry, which didn’t spot the opportunity. In an interview with Bloomberg, he laughed off the idea, saying it would never sell because of the high price tag of around $500. Microsoft’s (NASDAQ: MSFT) CEO at the time, Steve Balmer, rejected Apple’s new smartphone initially. There were plenty of iPhone naysayers back in 2007, too, when the product first launched. Of course, the new phones have their doubters. There had been rumors that Apple is working on a foldable prototype, and thanks to Kuo’s new report, the buzz just picked back up. And according to Display Supply Chain Consultants, more than 5.1 million foldable and rollable smartphones are expected to be shipped this year. Samsung, the world’s largest smartphone maker, led the way in 2020 with 87% of the foldable market. LG (NYSE: LPL) allocated $8.5 billion to foldable displays, saying it wants to make them the new standard.Ĭhinese tech behemoth Huawei spent more than $15 billion on research and development in 2018.
When I did my research, I discovered that Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG, NASDAQ: GOOGL) had already invested nearly $1 billion in foldable phones. So it’s no surprise that the world’s largest smartphone makers are scrambling to bring these phones to market. That may be a bit further into the future, but the possibilities are endless. When you’re done, unfold it into a laptop to finish off the workday. Ready to go for a jog? Fold it back into a smartwatch and bring it with you.
You can unfold your smartphone into a tablet to watch it on a larger screen. Say you’re texting a friend and they send you a highlight from last night’s game. It can literally fold into and out of virtually any device as effortlessly as folding a piece of paper.
I was skeptical at first, but they turned me into a believer.įoldable smartphones - like the one pictured here - are designed to bring even more convenience to people juggling multiple mobile devices. It sounds kind of crazy, but I first wrote about foldable phones nearly a year ago after getting my first taste of them at the huge Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January 2020 (just before Covid-19 hit). “After 5G,” Kuo wrote to clients, “the foldable smartphone is the next innovative selling point of high-end models.” That would make it slightly larger than the iPad mini. Ming-Chi Kuo of TFI Securities thinks it will have a foldable OLED display that can open up into an eight-inch tablet.
I’m talking about an honest to goodness smartphone that can fold into pretty much whatever device you need.Ī well-respected Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) analyst predicted this week that the largest company in the world (by market capitalization) will come up with a foldable iPhone in about two years. I’m not talking foldable like the old flip phones that opened and closed on a hinge - with a screen on one side and buttons on the other.