In 2014, Apple and Samsung lacked him to govern the American smartphones market. Samsung sold devices with large screens and iPhone fans required an answer.
It took Apple a little time, but the company finally published the iPhone 6, breaking with previous iterations and giving consumers a large screen option. The iPhone has won.
But more than a decade later, recent figures for smartphones and shipping sales report that Apple-Samsung fight has returned. And again, this is the screen.
In the second quarter, Samsung expeditions jumped in the United States, its market share going from 23% to 31% compared to the previous period, according to Canalys data. Apple’s market share during the quarter fell by 49%, compared to 56%.
Apple remains at the top of the American smartphones market, taking the majority of new smartphones sales in the United States, it is often second in the world, but recent briefs are pointing towards turbulence for the first time in more than a decade.
This is one of the reasons why investors sent Apple shares dropped by 7.5% this year, underperforming all the American technological companies in Megacap other than Tesla.
The Samsung stock, on the other hand, increased by around 35% in 2025.
Apple declared a 13% increase in iPhone sales from one year to the other in its July profits.
In July, Samsung presented a pair of new innovative phones that have foldable screens. A model, the Z Fold 7, can effectively turn into a tablet, while the Z Flip looks like an old-school leaf phone with modern smartphone features. They were added to the Samsung phones catalog released this spring under its Galaxy brand, including a slim and light phone called Galaxy S25 Edge.
The devices also get a lot of traction on social networks, especially around sustainability tests.
A user posted a live flow which showed him to fold the fold Z 7 more than 200,000 times in a row. The video was cut and widely shared on social networks, with a version of the clip accumulating more than 15 million views on YouTube.
During the last month, Samsung’s premium devices, including Z Fold 7, were mentioned more than 50,000 times on social networks, and 83% of these mentions were positive or neutral, according to social sprout data, a social media analysis company.
Market share numbers are not only the result of user preferences. A large part of the change of shipping figures during the June quarter, analysts said, can be allocated to prices, which cause a “disturbance” in industry, because smartphones manufacturers use different strategies to minimize the impact on their business.
But Samsung gains also reflect the company’s ability to offer a much wider range of products at different prices than Apple. This includes low-end phones, which represented a large part of the improvement of the United States in the second quarter of Samsung, as well as high-end devices that cost more than any individual iPhone.
The Samsung Galaxy and Z phones “covers $ 650 to $ 2,400. This is a massive period of devices, “said Runar Bjorhovde, channel analyst. “There is an idea that you can target people at each price, and you can meet them at every place.”
The iPhone has roughly the same appearance since 2017 – a piece of rectangular glass with a front screen at the front and a few cameras at the back. Nowadays, the company offers a series of four slates ranging from $ 829 to $ 1,599. Samsung and others are starting to go beyond the so-called candy bar and the experimentation of new shape factors.
Apple should start doing the same – starting with a potential launch next month of a thin iPhone that will compete with Samsung Galaxy Edge.
“Apple clearly bets that its 5.5 mm air model will raise its fortune because the tests suggest a strong desire for the new factor of form,” wrote the director general of Loop Capital, John Donovan, in May.
Jpmorgan Chase analyst Samik Chatterjee wrote in a report last month that Apple could publish a folding phone next year to compete with the Samsung Plé Z.
“Investor Focus has already turned to the fall 2026 launches with Apple which should launch its first foldable iPhone as part of the iPhone 18 range in September 2026,” wrote Chatterjee.
Trying new form factors offers Apple the possibility of selling devices at higher prices, according to Bjorhovde.
Apple’s most expensive phone, the iPhone 16 Pro Max is currently starting at $ 1,199 for 256 GB of storage and can go up to $ 1,599 for a version with 1 TB of storage. The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7, which was announced last week, begins at $ 1,999 for the 256 GB version and reaches $ 2,419 for version 1 TB.
Chatterjee said he thought the Apple version of a folding phone could start at $ 1,999.
Folding phones finally mature
Samsung’s first folding phone was released in 2019, but had a rocky start. The initial launch was delayed after the examiners – including CNBC – discovered that the first devices would break along their folding fold.
But Samsung says that this time is different, and that folding phones are finally ready to go running, in particular with regard to sustainability.
“There is really no more compromise to have a foldable device,” said Drew Blackard, vice-president of mobile products management at Samsung Electronics America.
The South Korean company does not provide sales numbers, but Blackard said that the Galaxy Z Fold 7, the latest version, had 25% more pre-orders than any Samsung folding phone and that sales exceed the predecessor of the device by almost 50%.
“Samsung with the foldable is able to really optimize for innovation,” said Bjorhovde. “Try to be in advance, show that something is different, and there is a certain halo effect.”
According to Counterpoint Research, a company that estimates smartphones sales to customers, the sale of Samsung increased by 16% during the June quarter, thanks to the demand for high -end devices, including a “slight boost” of the Slim S25 Edge.
The rise of artificial intelligence also announces new form factors for consumer electronics which could one day replace the iPhone.
OpenAI in May acquired the startup of the old guru of Apple Jony IVE’s design for $ 6.5 billion. The startup AI plans to develop the next generation of equipment, and other AI startups have published pins, pendants and glasses based on the voice of users to control the devices.
Samsung devices, as well as other Android phones, have access to Google Gemini, which is largely considered to be one of the best models of OPENAI Chatgpt. Gemini has several features that users cannot obtain with Siri and Apple Intelligence.
Blackard said that folding phones, with their larger screens, are well suited to AI. The Google Circle Function, which allows a user to simply surround something on the screen on which he would like to know more, is an example, said Blackard.
On a Samsung folding phone, he said, users can always see the original screen with the content they have surrounded, as well as another screen with additional information.
“It’s much more productive to be able to go back and forth,” said Blackard.
Investors feared that Apple Apple’s delays, including its new generation Siri that should now be released next year, could start to harm sales. But many analysts say that the loyalty and locking of the Apple brand will give it a period of years before the iPhone customers begin to defection for competitors.
Chatterjee told CNBC that Apple’s strategy with devices is to wait for a technology to be ready for the dominant current before adopting it. This moment can now be for foldable devices.
Apple “was never trying to be the first to market,” said Chatterjee. “It’s about being vigilant, seeing a technology mature, knowing that there are no big obstacles to the adoption of this technology, then to make ahead.”
