Samsung set to release a rollable display phone to counter Huawei's Mate XT
Instead of releasing flashy new foldable form factors that cost north of $3,000 like Huawei with its Mate XT tri-folding phone, Samsung is reportedly focusing on cutting costs and lowering the price of its handsets.
According to local media The Elec (translated), Samsung is not only cutting production costs, like removing the digitizer layer and S Pen support from the upcoming Galaxy Z Fold Special Edition, but also trimming anywhere it sees waste. So much so, that it will no longer be producing and shipping dummy phones to cell phone stores like it used to, starting this year.
It still has to remain competitive, though, as the Chinese foldable phones are eating its lunch after it spent many years at the top of the foldables' food chain. Phones like the thinnest Honor Magic V3 foldable, or the tri-folding Huawei Mate XT have apparently caused quite a stir in the Mobile Experience department over at Samsung.
It will have an answer to the V3 in the form of the Special Edition Z Fold later this year, but when it comes to multi-folding devices, they will reportedly remain at the proof-of-concept stage. Samsung has been showing tri-folding gear with two hinges at display or phone industry expos for the past few years, but for now they will remain at the prototype level, it seems.
Instead, Samsung is preparing to release the first retail phone with a rollable display as soon as the second half of 2025, perhaps together with the purported Galaxy Z Fold 7 and Z Flip 7, its "conventional" foldables, tip the proverbial sources familiar with the matter.
The commercial decision to ship a rollable display devices indicates Samsung's strategy shift to reinvigorate its foldable phone business. If you can't beat'em at the thinnest foldable phone game, make something slightly thicker but eventually more durable, like a Special Edition of the Z Fold.
If you can't be first with an expensive tri-folding phone, then be first with a phone that sports a rollable display that unfurls all the way to 12.4-inches in diagonal, according to display industry insiders.
You catch Samsung's drift, but if it is thinking of bringing to market something like this prototype here, the resulting device might be largish and rather expensive, at least in its first iteration.
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