What is Counterpoint actually forecasting for 2026?
Counterpoint Research expects global foldable smartphone shipments to grow 21% year-on-year in 2026, and it credits three things: continued demand for premium book-type devices, tighter competition among the big vendors, and Apple’s expected entry into the category.
Samsung stays in front, but with an asterisk. Counterpoint projects Samsung’s share falling to 32% in 2026 from 40% in 2025 — leadership intact, cushion gone. Apple is forecast to arrive with 25% of the market in its very first year, Huawei to hold 24%, Motorola 8%, and HONOR 3%. A 25% debut share is the kind of number most brands spend a decade chasing, which tells you how much pent-up demand Counterpoint thinks is sitting there waiting for an Apple foldable.
The thing to keep straight: this is one firm’s market model, not a consensus. And Apple has not announced a foldable at all. Counterpoint’s associate director Liz Lee frames 2026 as “a new phase” for the category, arguing Apple’s entry will “lift overall consumer awareness and raise the benchmark for premium foldables” while Samsung keeps an edge in “product maturity, channel reach and foldable user experience.” That is an educated bet on a device Apple hasn’t confirmed, priced, or dated.
What is Samsung expected to bring to the fight?
Samsung is expected to widen its foldable line at its upcoming Galaxy Unpacked event on 22 July 2026, moving toward a three-model strategy that Counterpoint describes as a Galaxy Z8 series — a Z8 Flip, a Z8 Fold, and a wider foldable device, with model names in circulation differing from Counterpoint’s Z8 labelling.
The wider book-type model is the interesting part, and it’s the genuinely new bit versus the 2025 lineup, which didn’t offer a clearly separate “wide” variant. In practice, more inner-display real estate matters because Counterpoint’s whole growth thesis leans on AI moving from chat boxes into actual workflows — summarising documents, editing content, juggling schedules, shuffling information between apps. A bigger, more flexible canvas is easier to sell when the pitch is “keep several tasks visible at once.” Whether buyers pay the traditional foldable premium for that convenience is the question the spec sheet never answers.
Our colleagues at PCMag Middle East have laid out what the new foldables would need to get right to hold that lead. And if you want the far end of Samsung’s folding ambitions, the company’s tri-fold phone and its specs show its ambitions.
Should UAE buyers read anything into the Apple number?
For now, the Apple projection is exactly that — a projection. Apple sells no foldable, has confirmed no name, price, design, or launch date, and Counterpoint’s 25% figure rests on its own forecast plus industry expectation rather than anything from Cupertino. Treat it as a market bet, not a product announcement.
What that means for shoppers in the UAE is straightforward: the practical decision this year is still Samsung’s, given its established regional retail presence and its history of putting the Gulf in the first wave of foldable launches. Samsung’s foldables have been sold through official UAE channels in previous generations, but exact local Z8 pricing, dates, and carrier bundles need confirmation from Samsung Gulf once the devices are official — anything before that is a currency conversion at best. If Apple’s foldable does land in 2026 as Counterpoint expects, the real contest — and the more interesting pricing fight — arrives a year later than the forecasts.
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