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Why Samsung, Google And Possibly Apple Are Investing In Folding Smartphones · THE DAILY BRIEF

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: When Samsung released its latest folding phone, the Galaxy z
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Fold seven, in July, some said the era of the
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: folding smartphone had arrived.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: If you were in the market for a foldable this
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: is a really, really good buy.
• 0:14
  Speaker 3: You guys know, I'm an Apple girly, but this phone
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  Speaker 3: is literally making me so excited to learn new things
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  Speaker 3: and go into a whole other world.
• 0:21
  Speaker 4: And honestly, Zold seven, you are per fet We just.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: Had our launch of our Galaxy Fold seven and Galaxy
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  Speaker 2: Flip seven and the demand has been incredible. We broke
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  Speaker 2: pre order records with our fold device, for example, and
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  Speaker 2: I think it's really showing the consumers are gravitating towards
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: that foldable form factor. We've built in more and more
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  Speaker 2: innovation to where these are now mainstream devices that consumers
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  Speaker 2: are opting for over traditional bar type phones.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: This next generation of folding phones entered the market in
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  Speaker 1: twenty eighteen with the release of the Royal FLEXPI, followed
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: in twenty nineteen by Samsung Galaxy Fold. Google followed with
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: the Pixel Fold. Motorola revived the Chinese brands like Huawei
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: and Shaomi push designs to be thinner and lighter, even
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Nokia has re entered the flip phone space, adding modern
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  Speaker 1: features like apps. Now, Apple is reportedly expected to join
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: the foldable race in twenty twenty six.
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  Speaker 5: This is not a new idea that Apple might do it,
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  Speaker 5: but it seems like they're closer than ever to actually
• 1:20
  Speaker 5: making it happen. The plan is for them to do
• 1:23
  Speaker 5: this in follow twenty twenty six and have their answer
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  Speaker 5: to it.
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  Speaker 1: But even with more brands in the game, foldables are
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  Speaker 1: still far from mainstream.
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  Speaker 6: At the moment, there's very little reasons for most people
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  Speaker 6: to replace their phones, So the reason to upgrade it
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  Speaker 6: needs to be something that is really different from what
• 1:42
  Speaker 6: we have today in our pockets, and that's where the
• 1:44
  Speaker 6: foldables can become the proposition for end users to look great.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: So why are tech companies doubling down? And why might
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: Apple make its move now? In the early two thousands,
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  Speaker 1: flip phones were the phones to have, Then the BlackBerry arrived,
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  Speaker 1: and in two thousand and seven the iPhone redefined the smartphone.
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  Speaker 3: How are we going to take this to a mobile device?
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  Speaker 3: But what we're gonna do is get rid of all
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  Speaker 3: these buttons and just make a giant screen, a giant screen.
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  Speaker 5: That really was the modern take on the smartphones, either
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  Speaker 5: the full touch screen, no physical buttons, or no physical keyboard.
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  Speaker 5: That really started in two thousand and seven, and it
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  Speaker 5: took several years for competitors to really catch up to
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  Speaker 5: what the iPhone was doing. Google of course put out
• 2:44
  Speaker 5: Android a couple of years later, but it wasn't until
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  Speaker 5: three or four years after the original iPhone launched that
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  Speaker 5: you could kind of say Android and other devices were
• 2:54
  Speaker 5: on parb with what Apple was offering with the iPhone.
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  Speaker 1: Fast forward to twenty nineteen, Samsung launched the first Galaxy Fold.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: It was a breakthrough, but durability was a problem.
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  Speaker 7: It was not as durable as it is now from
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  Speaker 7: a screen perspective. The other one was the design of
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  Speaker 7: the actual ever crease of the hinge itself allowed for
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  Speaker 7: some debris and dust to go under the screen, which
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  Speaker 7: impacted durability. But you know, as at first of its kind,
• 3:27
  Speaker 7: I think is one of those things that it's just
• 3:30
  Speaker 7: teeving problems early on.
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: With any new innovation, there's naturally trade offs where there's
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: this great new innovation, but you might be foregoing other
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: things along the way. And I think this year in particular,
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  Speaker 2: we've really overcome all of those barriers. This year it's
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  Speaker 2: at eight point nine millimeters slim, so that's close to
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  Speaker 2: the thickness of just one of our standard flagship phones,
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: and it unfolds into a large format experience, same with
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: our flip device. In the past, people said that they'd
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: like to see more flagship size battery life, for example,
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: and this year we increase the battery life, so it's
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  Speaker 2: on par with any of our flagships in terms of
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: battery life.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: Today in the US there are roughly eight to ten
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  Speaker 1: current models available, including devices from Samsung, Motorola, Google and
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  Speaker 1: one Plus. And Google just released a teaser of its
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: latest Pixel ten pro fold, but they still make up
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  Speaker 1: less than two percent of global smartphone shipments in twenty
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  Speaker 1: twenty four. Price is another hurdle. Many models cost between
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  Speaker 1: fifteen hundred and two thousand dollars.
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  Speaker 4: The price is at the high end of the smartphone
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  Speaker 4: market and creates a niche market and tops of volume.
• 4:37
  Speaker 4: Now what can change that. I don't think there's been
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  Speaker 4: that much progress made on that front to make it
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  Speaker 4: mass market ed. But what you do need to happen
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  Speaker 4: is prices need to come down over time.
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  Speaker 1: Apple's debut is reportedly set for twenty twenty six.
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  Speaker 5: A very very thin smartphone. Now, with today technology and
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  Speaker 5: if the foldable devices get better, they can make the
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  Speaker 5: screens bigger on the front, So a lot of more
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  Speaker 5: pieces are in place right now if Apple wanted to
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  Speaker 5: do it, but again there's no guarante