Only 2% would pay Apple’s price for a folding iPhone
Key Points
- Foldables accounted for 1.4% of global Speedtest samples in 2026, per Ookla
- Only 2% of US respondents would pay more than $1,800 for a folding iPhone
- Samsung holds 76.2% of foldable samples, with the Fold7 alone at 24.2%
- Adoption ranges from under 1% in Germany to almost 10% in South Korea
- Newer Samsung foldables beat slab phones on speed but run measurably warmer
Apple’s $1,999 iPhone Duo arrives in a market where folding phones make up just 1.4% of smartphones in use worldwide, according to new data from Ookla.
Ookla’s analysis of 2026 Speedtest samples through 11 September found foldables accounting for roughly 1.4% of all smartphone tests globally, seven years after Samsung shipped the original Galaxy Fold. Apple announced the Duo on 9 September at a starting US price of $1,999, with sales due to begin later next month.
In the US, Recon Analytics put foldables at 1.13% of the market, and only 2% of the people it surveyed said they would pay more than $1,800 for a folding iPhone. Ookla added that some US carriers have started pulling back on the subsidies and trade-in deals that usually close that kind of pricing gap.
Counterpoint expects the global foldable market to grow 20% in 2026, with Apple taking 28% of it almost immediately. The research firm still pegs foldables at just 2% of the global smartphone market.
Adoption varied widely among wealthy countries, from under 1% in Germany to 3% in the US and almost 10% in South Korea, where Samsung is headquartered. The US, UK and Japan all sat at the higher end of the scale, while Ookla said the Duo’s price tag relative to standard slab phones may prevent foldables from capturing significant global share.
Samsung represented 76.2% of all global foldable Speedtest samples in 2026 and took eight of the top ten spots, with Honor holding the other two. The most popular folding phones globally in 2026 were:
- Samsung Galaxy Z Fold7 – 24.2% of foldable samples
- Samsung Galaxy Z Fold6 – 11.5%
- Samsung Galaxy Z Fold5 – 8.5%
- Samsung Galaxy Z Flip7 – 5.3%
- Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4 – 4.9%
- Samsung Galaxy Z Flip6 – 4.9%
- Samsung Galaxy Z Flip5 – 4.2%
- Honor Magic V5 – 3.4%
- Samsung Galaxy Z Fold8 – 3.3%
- Honor Magic V3 – 2.7%
Samsung’s share of the foldable market has slipped since the first quarter of 2024 across a representative sample of 14 countries, with Motorola nearly tripling its share to 8.5% and Google rising from a few percentage points to almost 6%. Ookla said Samsung’s decline has flattened out in recent quarters.
Book-style folds that open to reveal a larger interior screen made up three-quarters of all foldable samples in 2026, with clamshell designs like the Galaxy Z Flip and Motorola Razr a distant second. Passport-sized designs like the new Galaxy Z Fold8 and the forthcoming iPhone Duo currently account for 3.3% of samples.
Ookla’s launch-trajectory analysis showed foldable adoption ramping sharply in the weeks after each announcement and then levelling off, which it said may point to early-adopter interest rather than sustained sales growth.
The Fold8 and Fold8 Ultra tracked slightly behind the Fold7’s pace, which the firm said may reflect some stagnation in interest in the category overall.
