Slimming wars: Samsung aims to launch 7 mm foldable smartphone

When Samsung Electronics Co. unveiled its latest iteration of foldable smartphones – the Galaxy Z Flip6 and the Z Fold6 – at the Unpacked 2024 event in Paris last week, one of the features with which it wowed consumers was the phones’ slimness.

The Z Fold6 is 12.1 millimeters thick, 1.3 mm less than its predecessor, and weighs 239 grams, 14 grams lighter than before.

TM Roh, president and head of Samsung’s Mobile eXperience (MX) division, now wants the next Galaxy foldable phones to be even slimmer.

He recently asked Samsung engineers to develop an extra-slim foldable smartphone – similar to the bar-type Galaxy S24’s thickness of 7.7 millimeters when folded, according to industry sources on Thursday. The MX division is also working on reducing the weight of its next foldables to below 239 grams.

Sources said the South Korean tech giant will likely unveil a 10 mm Galaxy Z Fold6 Slim model by the end of this year and make succeeding models thinner in the coming years.

Despite its slimness, Samsung’s next foldable smartphones will likely have a larger 8-inch screen than the 7.6-inch Z Fold6 screen when unfolded, they said.

SLOWER-THAN-EXPECTED UPTAKE

Samsung has been trying to make foldable smartphones its mainstream products in the high-end segment to better compete with its archrival Apple Inc.

Due to their size and weight, however, foldable phones launched by global smartphone makers accounted for a mere 1.6% of the entire smartphone market last year. In the premium segment with phones priced $600 and higher, foldables took up a 13% share.

Samsung has been steadily reducing the thickness of its foldable phones since it launched one in 2019. The Galaxy Fold series, once 17.1 mm thick, has now become 12.1 mm.

At Galaxy Unpacked 2024 in Paris, Roh said its consumers wanted the Galaxy foldable smartphones slimmer.

“Making a foldable with a thickness of less than 10 mm is challenging. But Samsung must address the issue to make its smartphones more appealing,” said an industry official.

THE SLIMMING WAR IS ALREADY ON

The war to make foldable smartphones slimmer is already underway among major smartphone makers.

China’s Xiaomi Inc. is slated to unveil a 9.47 mm thick Mix Fold 4 this Friday. Honor Device Co., a spin-off of Huawei Technologies Co., promoted its 9.2 mm Magic V3 as the world’s slimmest foldable phone during its launch last week.

Samsung is collaborating with its affiliates to produce slimmer foldable phones because each component, including the display, battery, camera and hinge, must perform properly with a smaller form factor.

Samsung Display Co. provides organic light emitting diode (OLED) panels to Samsung Electronics while Samsung Electro-Mechanics Co. makes camera modules for the smartphone maker.

FOLDABLE-SPECIFIC KILLER CONTENT

While pursuing thinner foldable phones, Samsung is also striving to add foldable-specific killer content to increase its presence in the foldable smartphone market.

Last October, sources said Samsung is developing mobile games customized for its Galaxy Fold and Flip series foldable smartphones in collaboration with leading game developers, including Epic Games, Tencent and NCSOFT Corp.

Samsung is also working with other mobile game publishers such as Krafton Inc., Nexon Games Co. and Pearl Abyss Corp. to develop new titles and optimize their popular games for Galaxy Fold and Flip phones.

Samsung has launched task force teams for game development in four countries with research branches: Korea, England, China and Ukraine.

The company is also collaborating with Google and other Android operating system-based app developers to produce foldable-specific apps, sources said.

Write to Eui-Myung Park, Chae-Yeon Kim and Jung-Soo Hwang at uimyung@hankyung.com

In-Soo Nam edited this article.