Analyst: Number of foldable phones will rise sharply in the second half of 2021
The number of foldable smartphones will increase significantly from the second half of this year, DSCC predicts. The analyst firm expects several new foldable and rollable phones from different manufacturers to appear this year.
According to Ross Young of analyst firm DSCC, the increase in the number of deliveries has several causes. For example, Samsung has postponed its upcoming foldable smartphones until the third quarter of 2021, DSCC reports. According to previous rumors, that company will come with at least three different folding phones in 2021, which would significantly increase the number of deliveries. Furthermore, Samsung would start selling foldable screens with a thin layer of glass to other smartphone manufacturers in the second half of 2021.
Partly because of this, DSCC expects that in the last quarter of 2021 ‘at least’ twelve different foldable and rollable phones will appear, from at least eight different smartphone manufacturers. Earlier this year, the analyst firm already claimed that Google and OPPO would come up with foldable smartphones this year and stated in 2020 that Xiaomi is working on several folding phones.
Young predicts that approximately 5.1 million rollable and foldable smartphones will be shipped by 2021. That is good for an increase of 128 percent. Sales from such phones are expected to increase by $137 this year to $8.6 billion. Samsung would account for 81 percent of the devices delivered this year and 76 percent of the turnover from foldable and rollable phones. Samsung Display would also remain a major player in providing screens for such phones. The market share of Samsung’s display division in this market segment is expected to increase to 87 percent by 2021.
Furthermore, the analyst firm reports that shipments of foldable phones in the fourth quarter of 2020 are up 242 percent compared to the same period in 2019. In the first quarter of 2021, a one percent increase is expected compared to the first quarter of 2020. , while a 40 percent decline is expected in the second quarter of this year compared to a year ago. That would be due to the lack of new smartphones in this market segment.
Deliveries should therefore increase significantly again in the second half of 2021. DSCC claims that the number of deliveries in the third and fourth quarters of this year will exceed all deliveries between 2020 and the first half of 2021 combined.