Samsung asserts significant increase in shipments of foldable smartphones to business customers

Samsung's premium foldable mobile devices have only been around for a few years now; however, the OEM now asserts that they are already becoming more "mainstream" in 2022, with an estimated 16 million unit shipped worldwide by the end of the year (or 73% more compared to the end of 2021), up to 80% of which are thought to be from the Galaxy Z Fold and Flip lines.

Those figures, courtesy of Counterpoint Research, cover consumers in general. However, Samsung now finds that business customers in particular have become drawn to foldables, having ordered 105% more from the company compared to 2021.

Samsung maintains that this is due to Android 12L-specific features that folding devices can do particularly well, such as Multi Windows, or the ability to display the contents of up to 3 apps at once, to particularly good effect in the Fold line-up.

Therefore, as Samsung reasons, a professional (especially one working remotely) can easily use a document while also taking notes during a video call. Furthermore, the Galaxy Z Fold3 and Fold4 are also of course capable of DocuSign thanks to their S-Pen support. 

The OEM has even collaborated with IBM's iX group to optimize the Fold-series' stylus and DeX support for financial services use-cases. On that note, Samsung also claims that many professionals in that field have come to prefer foldables for the extra screen real estate (even though one could argue that a Galaxy Tab S8 variant or an S22 Ultra could do at least as well in most cases).

Therefore, it seems foldable devices are as here to stay as Samsung appears to think, and may contribute to a projected increase in shipments of up to 26 million units in 2023. Other companies such as OPPO and Google seem to think so too, which may imply potential for more rivals for the Fold4 and its successors to take more seriously in the future.

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