We don’t normally report on the market trends at Coolsmartphone, but this little tidbit was too interesting not to share with you. As you may know, Honor has an event coming up where it will be launching its next-generation folding phone in Europe and the UK. In the build-up to this event, a market research firm Counterpoint has conducted some research into the European marketplace for folding phones. This research has identified some key interesting facts that I want to share with you.
Before I get into that, however, I do also want to tell you when the aforementioned event is happening, as it has been a while since I was able to last share any Honor Magic V5 content due to the embargo on this news. I am very pleased to say that the Honor Magic V5 Global launch event is happening on the 28th of August in London and I will be there along with the rest of the tech news world to report on the goings-on for you.
In addition, on that day at 3:30pm I will be able to publish my review of the Honor Magic V5, which I have been working on for a while since my initial unboxing post that I put out last month. Anyway, back to the research done by Counterpoint, who I have to make clear are not associated with Honor and are independent of brand association.
There are a couple of key notes that I want to pull out of the report for you, so here goes.
- Market Growth: European foldable smartphone sales are growing rapidly, especially for book-type foldables.
- Competition: Samsung’s near monopoly is challenged by HONOR, with Apple expected to enter the market in 2026.
- Sales Projection: Book-type foldable smartphone sales are projected to reach 2% of Europe’s total smartphone sales and 10% of the premium smartphone segment by 2028.
This makes the next few years a really interesting time for fans of foldable phones like me. I have now been using a folding phone of some type for nearly three years as my daily device, and during that time, I have used one from nearly every company in the list in the images below (with the exception of Tecno). Every time I review a candy bar-style phone, I am very quickly drawn back to a folding phone (normally the Pixel 9 Pro Fold). Yes, there are some sacrifices that are to be made when using a folding phone, but for me, these sacrifices are overcome by having the larger, expansive internal screen that can be unfolded and used whenever I need a bit more space. I no longer find that I need to carry a tablet around when I am travelling for my media viewing, as I can now do all of this in my folding phone. The only time I would actually carry around a tablet now is if I was using it for working on an article, and that would only be if I didn’t have my laptop available.
I guess what I am trying to say is that I no longer find the folding phone as niche a device as it once was. I also fully expect that with the generations of foldable phones that are coming out now, including the Honor Magic V5, which are so slim that they are no larger than similarly specced candy bar phones, we are going to start seeing these devices more often in the hands of the public. In fact, on a recent trip through Madeira International Airport, I spotted at least two other passengers using Honor Magic V Series devices. These somewhat random sightings are becoming more and more frequent, and I am all for it.
As you can see from the graphic above, the year-on-year growth has been substantial, and I anticipate this increase next year when a certain fruit-based company releases its version of the folding phone, as they will, of course, reinvent the concept.
So if you, like me, are a fan of folding phones, the future looks very exciting, and with the Honor Launch Event only nine days away, you can rest assured that we have exciting things to come from Honor as they continue to eat into Samsung’s market dominance by tearing down the perceptions of what a folding phone can be in terms of design, form, and function.
If you would like to read more about this research, you can check out the Counterpoint article here.