Motorola and Google are coming for Samsung's foldable crown in a major market

Phone Arena

4 hours ago

The world's number one smartphone vendor is also ranked in first place as far as European foldable sales are concerned, but just like all of its other recent trophies from around the globe, Samsung's latest achievement is overshadowed by a big misfire. The old continent's foldable smartphone market as a whole, meanwhile, continues to be described by Counterpoint Research analysts as a "niche segment", showing worryingly low year-on-year progress for an "emerging" product category "supposedly in its early growth stage." Probably not. After all, its 26 percentage point advantage over silver medalist Motorola in Q1 2025 market share continues to look mighty comfortable... despite obviously being significantly smaller than the 38 percent lead over Honor from the first three months of 2024. Then again, you "probably" didn't expect Samsung's global supremacy in the foldable segment to end as quickly and as abruptly as it did either, so let's just focus on how the numbers look right now and refrain from making any short or long-term predictions.
The Razr 60 Ultra could soon become a European and global foldable best-seller. | Image Credit -- PhoneArena That seems especially wise when you consider how many exciting new foldable models are unveiled by top industry brands practically every month. Motorola, for instance, took the wraps off the Razr 60, aka Razr (2025), family in April, while Samsung is widely expected to "unpack" anywhere between two and five Z Fold and Z Flip devices sometime in July. The Razr 50, aka Razr (2024), series, mind you, was the driving force behind Motorola's impressive 58 percent European foldable sales growth between Q1 2024 and the same period of this year, so the company could well be looking at a further improvement of its 15 percent share in Q2 2025 as the aforementioned upgraded models come into the equation. Like the European foldable champion, the former number two vendor reported a decline of over 20 percent in its Q1 sales between 2024 and 2025 despite releasing some "fantastic" models like the Magic V3 over the last year or so. Surpassed by Motorola, Honor did manage to keep Google, Tecno, and Xiaomi at bay, at least for the time being.
That, my friends, is the million-dollar question I don't have an answer for, especially with high prices being blamed for both Samsung's struggles and the market's woes in its entirety. The Pixel 9 Pro Fold, remember, starts at a whopping $1,799 in the US and €1,899 in European markets like France or Germany, nonetheless managing (presumably almost by itself) to boost Google from 2 to 8 percent market share in only 12 months. That's a 265 percent (!!!) year-on-year growth in sales, mind you.
Google and Tecno's progress is simply staggering. Can the Pixel 10 Pro Fold help Big G threaten Samsung's supremacy or at least Motorola or Honor's places on the European podium? That seems highly unlikely, but weirder things have already happened, like Tecno's rise to the top five vendors group. If you've never heard of Tecno, don't worry, you're probably not alone, but that's what happens when foldables only account for 1.5 percent of an entire continent's smartphone sales. Tecno is somehow ranked ahead of both Xiaomi and Oppo in Europe's foldable segment thanks largely to a device called Phantom V Fold 2, which is almost unbelievably affordable for a book-style powerhouse with a 7.85-inch primary display and a 6.4-inch cover screen in tow.
Clearly, the way forward for a lot of big and small names of the mobile industry in the foldable category will be a larger focus on budget-friendly models with stylish but also robust designs, as well as respectable specifications. In other words, it sounds like Samsung should start fearing Motorola and Google should consider releasing more than one (overpriced) foldable a year.