Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman has made an interesting prediction in his latest newsletter, suggesting that the iPhone Duo is just the start and that most iPhones will be foldable within a decade.
He argues that in that kind of timescale, even budget devices like the iPhone SE could go foldable as manufacturing costs fall …
Prior to the launch of the iPhone Duo, foldables are an incredibly niche product, accounting for just 2% of the global smartphone market. Despite its high price tag, the Duo is expected to change this significantly over the course of the next 12 months.
Counterpoint Research predicted last week that the foldable market will grow 24% in the remainder of this year and a further 37% next year. The firm also predicts that Apple will take a 40% market share within that timescale, which could make it the leading player in the market.
In his latest Power On newsletter, Gurman looks further ahead.
My prediction is that, within a decade, foldables will make up the majority of new phone sales. Users will increasingly see the benefits of having a larger display in their pocket and a device that can replace a laptop or tablet for many tasks. Foldables could become the do-it-all computing products of the future.
Top comment by Throwback
That is a bold prediction. I don’t see most phones being foldable in a few years. Slab phones will still have a huge price delta due to ease of manufacture and component cost, especially the screen and hinge cost.
He suggests that Apple could go both up and down the price ladder with future foldables. He sees an iPhone Duo Max with a larger display and bigger price tag as one possibility, but also an iPhone SE in the company’s future.
9to5Mac’s Take
A decade is an extremely long time in tech, so almost anything could happen within that kind of timescale – if, indeed, humanity survives that long. It’s certainly well within the bounds of possibility that the foldable format could become ubiquitous thanks to falling manufacturing costs.
A likely next step is to find a way to embed Face ID into the device. This is technically easier than the selfie camera sitting beneath the interior display, so the challenge here is to manage the depth of the Face ID array on the outer screen without making the device any thicker.
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