Bambang Pamungkas
Apple has officially entered the foldable smartphone arena with the launch of its latest device, the iPhone Duo, positioning itself as a late entrant into a market that has been maturing for nearly a decade. While the Silicon Valley tech giant is only now bringing its hardware ecosystem to the foldable category, the concept of folding displays is far from new. The industry’s journey began eight years prior when a relatively obscure Chinese display manufacturer pioneered the form factor, sparking a technological race that has since transformed the mobile landscape.
The launch of the iPhone Duo marks a watershed moment for the mobile industry. Although Apple is famously deliberate—often waiting for technologies to mature before introducing its own iterations—its arrival in the foldable segment underscores how mainstream this once-experimental design has become. Industry analysts project that Apple’s entry will serve as a massive catalyst for wider consumer adoption, fundamentally reshaping market dynamics and intensifying competition in the ultra-premium smartphone tier.
A Decade in the Making: The Chronology of Foldable Smartphones
The genesis of the foldable smartphone era dates back to October 2018, when Chinese display maker Royole introduced the Flexpai. Featuring a 7.8-inch flexible display, the device beat major global manufacturers to the punch. However, Royole’s pioneering effort was widely criticized by early adopters and tech reviewers. The device suffered from rigid and unrefined software, alongside a clunky plastic hinge that raised durability concerns. Despite failing to capture mainstream commercial success, the Flexpai laid the technical groundwork for what was to come.
By 2019, the floodgates opened. Major smartphone manufacturers recognized the potential of flexible OLED panels and rushed to introduce their own interpretations of the technology. Samsung took a commanding early lead by launching the Galaxy Fold, an ambitious device priced near the $2,000 threshold that aimed to bridge the gap between smartphones and tablets. Later that same year, Motorola leaned into nostalgia by reviving its iconic Razr brand as a vertically folding flip phone, while Huawei entered the fray with the Mate X, showcasing an outward-folding mechanism.
The experimentation phase continued into 2020. Microsoft attempted a dual-screen productivity approach with the Surface Duo, utilizing two separate panels connected by a mechanical hinge rather than a single continuous folding display.
As hardware durability improved and software optimization caught up, adoption accelerated. Alphabet’s Google entered the market in 2023 with the Pixel Fold, validating the horizontal book-style foldable format. Simultaneously, Samsung and a cadre of aggressive Chinese manufacturers continuously refined their hardware, reducing crease visibility, enhancing hinge mechanisms, and slimming down device profiles.
The boundaries of engineering were pushed even further in 2024 when Huawei revolutionized the sector by releasing the world’s first commercial tri-fold smartphone, allowing users to expand a standard phone into a tablet-sized workspace through a dual-hinge mechanism. Samsung followed suit by developing its own multi-folding prototypes, culminating in commercial rollout phases by late 2025.
Market Share and Competitive Landscape
Despite Apple’s historical absence from the segment until now, the foldable market has experienced steady, compound growth driven primarily by Asian manufacturers. According to market intelligence data from Counterpoint Research, South Korean tech titan Samsung has historically commanded the global foldable market, maintaining a dominant market share of approximately 40%. Huawei closely follows as its chief rival, capturing roughly 30% of the global market share through a relentless cadence of hardware innovations and aggressive pricing strategies in domestic and international markets.
Other players, including Honor, Oppo, Vivo, and Xiaomi, have carved out substantial niches, particularly in the Chinese domestic market where consumers have warmly embraced ultra-thin foldable form factors. These competitors have pressured traditional slab-phone manufacturers by making foldables thinner, lighter, and more durable than their predecessors.
Apple’s Strategic Entry: The iPhone Duo
Apple’s delayed entrance culminates in the debut of the iPhone Duo. Designed with a passport-like footprint, the device places heavy emphasis on media consumption and spatial efficiency. Apple has reportedly engineered the iPhone Duo to optimize video aspect ratios, significantly reducing the intrusive black letterbox bars that have traditionally plagued foldable inner displays.
By waiting eight years since Royole’s initial experiment, Apple has bypassed the growing pains of early generation hardware failures, fragile ultra-thin glass, and software fragmentation. Instead, the company enters the market with a mature ecosystem of iPadOS and iOS adaptations tailored specifically for dual-screen and flexible panel environments.
Industry Projections and Market Implications
The immediate consequence of the iPhone Duo’s release is a projected surge in global foldable shipments. Market research firm IDC has released forecasts indicating that total global foldable smartphone shipments will increase by nearly 30% over the course of the year, directly propelled by consumer demand for Apple’s hardware ecosystem and the subsequent marketing push.
Tarun Pathak, Research Director at Counterpoint Research, noted that Apple’s entry will fundamentally alter the competitive landscape, particularly within the high-end and ultra-premium pricing brackets.
"Apple will undoubtedly elevate the intensity of competition in the premium segment," Pathak stated. "However, it is important to contextualize that foldables still constitute a relatively minor percentage of the broader, overall smartphone market. Consequently, there remains immense headroom and significant space for exponential growth well beyond current shipment volumes."
Broader Economic and Technological Fallout
The arrival of the iPhone Duo is expected to trigger a ripple effect across the supply chain. Component manufacturers specializing in ultra-thin flexible glass (UTG), precision-engineered hinges, and high-density silicon-carbon batteries will likely experience increased production demands to meet Apple’s stringent quality control and scale requirements.
Furthermore, software developers who have long prioritized standard rectangular aspect ratios must now accelerate their optimization efforts. With Apple standardizing its own folding aspect ratio through the iPhone Duo, developers have a definitive commercial incentive to build responsive applications that seamlessly transition between the outer cover display and the expansive inner canvas.
As the smartphone industry moves past its saturation point in traditional slab devices, the foldable category is no longer viewed as a mere novelty or tech-enthusiast niche. With every major global manufacturer now heavily invested in flexible display technology, the launch of the iPhone Duo acts as a definitive validation of a form factor that took nearly a decade to reach mass-market legitimacy.
