Samsung starts selling its latest foldable phones in India: Price, specs

Samsung Electronics has announced that its latest generation foldable phones, the Galaxy Z Flip 4 and Z Fold 4, can now be bought in India. The two new phones were unveiled globally on August 10, and can now be preordered in India. However, Samsung India is yet to offer a date from when the phones would be shipped to buyers.

While the Galaxy Z Flip 4 is priced at ₹89,999 for the 128GB storage variant and ₹94,999 for the 256GB storage variant, the more premium Galaxy Z Fold 4 is priced onward of ₹1,54,999 for the 256GB storage variant -- going all the way up to ₹1,84,999 for the 1TB storage variant.

The Galaxy Z series' fourth generation is the latest foldable smartphones to be unveiled, after TM Roh, president and head of Samsung's global mobile phones business, said in a blog post that shipments of foldable phones reached close to 10 million units in 2021. The Galaxy Z Flip 4 and Fold 4 come in the interlude of the journey of foldable phones to become mainstream, which market research firms state could be difficult.

For instance, market research firm International Data Corporation projected in its worldwide market forecast report for foldable devices in February this year that while foldable phone shipments around the world were at around 1.9 million units in 2020, the last year saw a good pace of adoption of the new form factor for smartphones. By 2025, IDC projected that globally, over 27 million foldable phones could be shipped -- thus nearly tripling in shipment numbers over the next three years.

However, even with close to 30 million devices shipped, foldable phones would still account for a minuscule chunk of all smartphone sales. For reference, on June 1, IDC's global smartphone shipments forecast said that even after falling by 3.5% annually, a total of over 1.3 billion smartphone units are expected to be shipped around the world this year.

At around 10 million units right now, foldable phones do not even account for 1% of all smartphone shipments around the world -- a metric that would not change drastically even if foldable phone shipments triple in the next three years.

To promote its latest foldable devices, Samsung India has announced a host of offers for both the Galaxy Z Flip 4 and Z Fold 4 -- which include the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 smartwatch at ₹2,999 with every pre-booking of the Galaxy Z Fold 4 smartphone.