This phone isn’t just about the folding stuff

With Samsung Electronics Co. finally launching its troubled Galaxy Fold, success for the $1,980 luxury handset may be measured not in how many it ships, but how many competitors decide to develop their own.
Pre-release enthusiasm for the device turned to exasperation in April when review units were found to have a severe defect related to the folding screen design. That made reviewers, analysts and investors rightfully skeptical about whether Samsung had gone too far and fallen off the bleeding edge of technology innovation. Three years earlier, the South Korean giant had grappled with exploding batteries in the Galaxy Note 7, ultimately discontinuing the device after a botched recall.
Management handled the setback much better this time, making the pragmatic decision to delay release of the Fold pending a redesign. Now that it’s available, the spotlight will once again be on the screen to see whether the design can hold up to daily wear and tear.
Joining the crowds scrutinising every millimeter of screen and its hinge will be executives at Huawei Technologies, Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi and even Apple Inc. While all are rivals to Samsung in smartphones, they’re also potential customers for its displays.
Samsung’s virtual lock on organic light-emitting diode (OLED) technology over the past few years helped that division post an impressive run of operating profits as leading names, including Apple, clamored to get their hands on these brighter, lower-power displays. That star has since faded. The global smartphone industry is now in a funk, and Samsung isn’t alone in wanting to offer something fresh and exciting to juice sales.
That makes the Fold a product of two divisions at Samsung. The smartphone unit naturally wants an awesome design that sets tongues wagging, while the display division wants to be able to show prospective clients what it can do. In this regard, the Fold is like a concept car for smartphones, as I observed in February. It’s intended to showcase the company’s technological brilliance rather than drive sales.
If the display division can pull it off, foldable technology will be seen as an engineering marvel. Bloomberg’s Sohee Kim and Mark Gurman wrote on Thursday that while a crease is still visible in the middle of the folded device, it’s not obtrusive. Other features, such as transition from closed to open, work well. The wider reception among media seems to follow a similar tone.
The Galaxy Fold is only the start. Samsung is working on a new foldable that will collapse into a compact square.
The real success of the handset, though, will be seen when competitors start to roll out their own foldable phones – using Samsung screens, of course.
—Bloomberg

Tim Culpan is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering technology. He previously covered technology for Bloomberg News

—Bloomberg