OnePlus/Oppo tipped to discontinue flagship foldable smartphones

Transsion is the electronics OEM responsible for brands such as Tecno and Infinix, and as such cultivates a reputation for agility, versatility and innovation in consumer electronics. Despite that, the corporation has reportedly decided to drop out of the foldable smartphone market, suggesting that there will be no successor to ambitious devices such as the Phantom V Fold2.

Now, an even better-known Chinese firm is poised to follow suit, according to industry rumors blog Laifeng.com. The company remains anonymous in the report, yet apparently has a line of top-end foldables of the V Fold2's book-style form-factor.

Accordingly, that OEM could well be Oppo, which has also reportedly cancelled the successor to its 'smaller' foldable, the clamshell-type Find N3 Flip, mirroring the decision by sister brand Vivo to do the same with its X Flip 2.

Then again, Oppo is also still visible on the flagship foldable landscape with its Find N3, also known as the OnePlus Open: the main alternative to its Google Pixel Fold- and Samsung Galaxy Z Fold-series counterparts on sites such as Amazon.

Furthermore, it is also tipped to get even better in its second generation, with upgrades such as magnetic wireless charging, an even more generous main flexible OLED display and the same Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset as the brand's current candy-bar flagship smartphone.

The foldable device market can indeed be capricious and precarious, with tech giant Xiaomi reportedly seeing faltering sales for its top-end, 4th-gen Mix Fold while its first-gen Mix Flip clamshell flourishes by comparison. It is now projected to gain about 5 times more shipments than the Fold 4 by the end of the year in its native China.

Nevertheless, the sudden absence of the Open 2 (or 3) would be a blow to the international market, leaving its few competitors with less incentive to improve on the possibilities unlocked by its first generation, a more 'normal-sized' cover display; faster charging; potentially superior Open Canvas multitasking features and a full-sized Hasselblad-branded camera hump included.