Foldable OLEDs: introduction and market status

Last month we reported that Samsung Display decided to expand its OLED production hub in Asan, looking to expand its flexible (mostly foldable) OLED capacity. 

According to the latest news from Korea, Samsung has indeed confirmed the expansion, and more details on SDC's plans has emerged. This expansion plan is part of a large Korean government initiative to build a next-generation production base in Asan, for both displays and semiconductors.

An interesting industry report suggests that Samsung is planning to ship 5-6 million foldable smartphones in 2026, from its new 8-Gen series (which will include the Galaxy Z Fold8, Z Flip8, and the new Galaxy Wide Fold). 

These numbers are slightly lower than what the company shipped in 2025, about 6 million units for their Galaxy Z7 series. It appears as if Samsung is anticipating a somewhat lower demand this year for foldable smartphones - a few months ago it believed it will ship 6.5 million units in 2026.

Reports from Korea suggest that Samsung Display has decided to expand its OLED production hub in Asan, looking to expand its flexible (mostly foldable) OLED capacity.

It seems as if Samsung is seeing higher demand for foldable OLEDs in the future, starting with Apple's first foldable OLED smartphone launch later this year. 

Apple is moving forward with its first foldable OLED iPhone project, that will launch later in 2026, and it was previously reported that the US company has ordered 13 million units from SDC towards the end of 2025. Apple originally ordered 11 million units, but has recently added 2 million more as it anticipates high demand for its new device.

But now we hear a different report from Korea. Apple is actually highly cautious, and has decided to reduce its order to only 3 million units in the first batch. Apple seems to want to advance slowly and gauge actual demand before it moves to produce more devices.

Back in December 2025 Samsung launched its first tri-folding AMOLED phone, the Galaxy Z TriFold. According to reports from China, the company has decided to discontinue it and will stop producing more devices.

Samsung does not plan to develop a successor to this phone. It is reported that the company never intended for this product to be mass produced, it was always meant to be a limited edition device. 

Apple is moving forward with its first foldable OLED iPhone project, that will launch later in 2026, and the US company has ordered 11 million units from SDC towards the end of 2025. According to the latest reports, Apple is getting more optimistic about the demand for its foldable iPhone, and has recently increased its order by around 20% (or about 2 million more panels).

The foldable phone also includes another AMOLED panel for the external display, so Apple ordered also 2 million more of these panels. According to earlier reports, the price of each foldable AMOLED is around $250 - which means that this new order amount to something around $500 million, bringing the total foldable iPhone orders so far to around $3.5 billion. This is good news for Samsung that is suffering from a weak smartphone display market in China.

BOE announced that it has developed a new crease-less (or zero-line) foldable OLED display, which it brands as BOE Glaze Fold. BOE says that the new technology reduces the crease visibility (and feel) by over 40%.

The visible crease has been one of the major foldable OLED adoption hurdles. Earlier this year Samsung Display was first to demonstrate a crease-less foldable OLED. Reportedly, SDC's technology will be utilized by Samsung in their 2026 foldable smartphone - and also by Apple in their 2026 foldable iPhone.

BOE's crease-less OLED was enabled by a multi-neutral-layer architecture design, that performs better than the standard single-neutral-layer display. Using a gradient modulus design, the new multi-layer architecture helps the stress to be spread out on several layers, and so reduces the peak stress and finally stops the deformation that quickly happens with folding displays. 

Bloomberg is claiming that Apple is developing a large foldable iPad, one that features a 18-inch display when fully open. While this is an exciting project, Bloomberg's report says that there are many technical challenges, and the plan is to release it in 2029 - and the project will likely to be cancelled soon.

There are also other reports that Apple is developing a smaller folding tablet, that may replace the iPad mini. But there are not many details there, yet.

Lenovo is demonstrating a nice new folding gaming handheld concept, the Lenovo Legion Go Fold Concept. This one uses a 11.6" foldable AMOLED display (produced by BOE), that folds-in to become a 7.7" panel when closed. 

The gaming console has several screen orientation configuration, and can also be used like a laptop and be attached to a wireless keyboard. This is just a concept device, at this stage.