Galaxy Z Fold FE: no affordable model on the horizon, and Samsung confirms it!
The folding smartphone market, and more precisely that dedicated to book format, is not the most affordable. In fact, the bill starts at €1,899 at Google with the Pixel 9 Pro Foldand rises to €1,999 for Honor Magic V3 and Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6. We therefore have high entry prices, clearly impacting the adoption of this category of phones.
Rumors nevertheless estimated that the market leader, Samsung, was considering launching an FE variant. This would have made it possible to lower the acquisition price to around €1,500, or the amount of a traditional premium smartphone (iPhone 16 Pro Max, Galaxy S24 Ultra…).
Bad news in the story, Samsung doesn't want it. The company also confirmed this on October 22, 2024 with the South Korean media SisaJournal: “Rather than considering the [Galaxy Z Fold Special Edition] as a premium product, this is a product marketed to expand your options. You can choose according to your taste. At this time we have no plans to release a separate product with a lower price”.
A fairly intriguing choice when we know that competition, mainly Chinese, has been intensifying for several months. Market shares are thus gradually being gained, with significantly lower prices and more advanced technical characteristics. We think in particular of the Honor Magic V3 and its impressive finesse, or the photo quality of the OnePlus Open.
Although Samsung is making efforts with the recent Galaxy Z Fold Special Edition, this model remains limited to China and South Korea, and increases the bill to around $2,025, compared to $1,899 for the Galaxy Z Fold 6. This seems daring in the face of competition, which is making efforts to offer a similar or even better service at a lower cost.
Only brand image seems to be behind Samsung in selling its new folding phone, and future models. We still wonder if this will be enough to avoid losing too much market share to other manufacturers.
