SAN FRANCISCO — Samsung unveiled a highly anticipated smartphone with a foldable screen in an attempt to break the innovation funk that has beset the smartphone market.
But it’s far from clear that consumers will embrace a device that retails for almost $2,000, or that it will provide the creative catalyst the smartphone market needs.
The Galaxy Fold, announced Wednesday in San Francisco, will sell for $1,980 when it is released April 26.
Consumers willing to pay that hefty price will get a device that can unfold like a wallet. It can work like a traditional smartphone with a 4.6-inch screen or morph into something more like a mini-tablet with a 7.3-inch screen.
When fully unfolded, the device will be able to simultaneously run three different apps on the screen. The Galaxy Fold will also boast six cameras: three in the back, two on the inside and one on the front.
After spending nearly five years developing the technology underlying its foldable-screen phone, Samsung is clearly hoping for a big payoff.
“Get ready for the dawn of a new era,” declared DJ Koh, who oversees Samsung’s smartphone division. The new phone, he said, “answers skeptics who said everything has already been done.”
If Samsung is right, the Galaxy Fold will spur more people to upgrade their phones. Overall smartphones sales peaked in 2017 ; Samsung saw its smartphone sales fall 8 percent last year, based on estimates from the research firm International Data Corp. Worldwide, smartphone sales dropped 4 percent in 2018, according to IDC.
But most analysts see a limited market for foldable-screen phones, at least in the early going. Phones like the Galaxy Fold “are likely to sell to a very limited market of technology aficionados who like big screens and have big wallets,” said IDC analyst Ramon Llamas.
Although he also believes the Galaxy Fold is more a “status symbol” than mainstream product, Moor Insights & Strategy analyst Patrick Moorhead said the device is symbolically important for Samsung, the top seller of smartphones in the world. “The Fold was icing on the cake showing that Samsung is the company driving new innovations and excitement to the market,” Moorhead said.
There’s no doubt that the Galaxy Fold is “luxury technology,” conceded Justin Denison, a Samsung senior vice president during an interview. But he also predicted that the advent of foldable screens will unleash new uses for mobile devices. “It’s a technological marvel,” Denison said.
