The Struggles of Android Innovation: Foldables and Flagships Falling Short
Android innovation barely buys them anything.
Take Foldables. Samsung introduced them 6 years ago, all Android still. Well in 2023 5 generations later, total Android Foldables sold about 15M, Samsung’s part 10.5M, about 3.1M Folds, 7.4M Flips. At $1799 & $999, expensive premium models that don’t sell, Chinese OEM’s make up the 3.5M rest, Google, ha, lucky to sell 100K Pixel Folds. Previous projections had Foldables at 35M in 2024, then revised down to 28M, now they’ll have to revise down to <20M.
Why don’t they sell? Too expensive for the Android premium market, not reliable enough, and Android doesn’t work terribly well with these odd formats.
Those innovative Android Flagships like the Galaxy S23 - in 2023 barely reached 32M, better than 2022’s 28M S22’s but far short of previous S models before 2020. The AI infused S24 series is off to a good start but doesn’t appear to have sales legs into its 2nd and 3rd quarters of sales.
Combined 32M Galaxy S and maybe 11M Foldables show Samsung “innovative” flagships at 43-45M total generously and they’ll be lucky to surpass that this year. They are just 19% of total Samsung sales, that’s why Samsung’s avg sales price (asp) is $360, showing most of their sales, like other Androids, are cheaper mid (<$400) & low price (<$200), 4 out of every 5.
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