In early December 2024, supply chain consulting firm DSCC released a report stating, 'In the third quarter of 2024, the global procurement volume of foldable display panels dropped year-on-year for the first time, with a decrease as high as 38%.'

The DSCC report predicts that in 2025, the global foldable display market will decrease by 4%, with demand stagnating at around 22 million panels. In the next five quarters, the trend of declining foldable display shipments will not change in four of them.

According to exclusive information obtained by Wall Street Journal from the supply chain, the Huawei Mate X6, which was released on November 26, 2024, and went on sale on December 6 of the same year, has overall sales that are not inferior to the Mate X5 as of December 31, 2024, demonstrating Huawei's dominance as a Super Brand.

Wall Street Journal exclusively learned that the Huawei Mate X6, in the first two weeks of its launch, saw an increase in sales compared to the Mate X5 during the same period, exceeding 130% and 12% respectively.

Due to widely known reasons, the Huawei Mate X6 was only launched in the China market, but within three weeks of its initial release, its sales managed to catch up to the global sales of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold6 (released on July 10, 2024) within two weeks, highlighting the impact of Huawei's absence from the global foldable display panel procurement volume.

In the third quarter of 2024, as mentioned in the DSCC report, Huawei did not launch any new foldable devices, and OPPO and vivo were also absent, but Samsung Electronics, Honor, and Xiaomi all released foldable models, with Honor releasing the smaller foldable Magic V Flip, while Xiaomi launched the larger foldable MIX Flip.

The sales figures for these two models are negligible on a global scale and will not have a positive impact on the Large Cap foldable display panel market.

Samsung Electronics' Galaxy Z Fold6 sales fell short of expectations, while Samsung's market share in the foldable screen models ranks first globally; Huawei, Honor, and Lenovo are in second, third, and fourth places respectively.

Therefore, Samsung's foldable screen sales have a significant impact on the overall contraction trend of global foldable screen panels, but the presence of the other three Chinese smartphone manufacturers is also not negligible.

According to a report by DSCC, it is expected that the shipment volume of Samsung Z Flip6 panels in 2024 will decrease by over 10% compared to the 2023 Z Flip5; while the total procurement volume of Samsung foldable screen panels is expected to drop by over 20%, the lowest level since 2021.

When will the decline in global foldable screen panel procurement end? The industry hopes that Apple will also enter the foldable phone market.

On January 6, Wall Street Observer exclusively learned from the supply chain that Apple is indeed tentatively scheduled to launch a foldable phone in the third quarter of 2026 (most likely in September), possibly also a foldable laptop. Apple's foldable model is likely to adopt a clamshell design, which is a small foldable (Flip: up and down folding).

Every year-end, news about Apple's launch of a foldable model circulates, but this time, it is clearly different from previous years.

Rumors about Apple launching a foldable phone have been around for at least two or three years. Various news about Apple's research and development of foldable devices has been emerging one after another. Among them, the biggest highlight is that Apple's foldable device will 'eliminate' creases.

On December 11, 2024, the industry revealed a foldable screen hinge design patent obtained by Apple.

According to the patent description, this patent design can be widely applied to mobile phones, tablets, laptops, and even wearable devices such as watches. This indicates that the patent can be used not only for iPhone but also deployed on iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch.

This corroborates the information above, as Apple will also launch a foldable screen laptop after introducing the foldable phone.

In addition, Wall Street Saw noted that Apple has another patent technology that involves cutting the inner side of the glass in the folding part of the device and then filling it with polymer material to keep the screen surface smooth and flat, without creases.

Information about Apple's foldable phone, foldable iPad, or foldable laptop is very limited, with most of it being speculation. However, in the third quarter of 2026, Apple will enter the foldable device market, at least this news appears to have been initially confirmed.

In this regard, the global foldable screen panel market is expected to emerge from its downturn around 2026.

The DSCC report predicts that in 2026, driven by Apple, the shipment volume of foldable devices will reach a historical high, with a growth rate exceeding 30%; in 2027 and 2028, the growth rate will also exceed 20%.

The DSCC report states that the market for foldable screen smart phones is expected to increase from 19 million units in 2023 to 75 million units in 2026, with an average annual growth of over 50%.

It is worth mentioning that initially, Apple's foldable screen phone is expected to have its screens supplied by Samsung Display: based on 2026, the estimated shipment volume is about 15 million to -20 million units, but Samsung Display's actual supply volume is about 16 million to -22 million units, including some potential wastage (tolerance).