Behind the scenes

Who’s really buying foldables and flip phones?

22.10.2024

Translation: Katherine Martin

Foldable smartphones are often touted as stylish gadgets aimed at young women. In reality, however, it’s a different story. Digitec Galaxus’s sales figures reveal that rather than 20-year-old trendsetters, the people most likely to buy flip phones are affluent men aged 45 plus.

If you take a close look at the ads for foldable smartphones, you’ll see nothing but young people. From market leader Samsung to Xiaomi to flip-phone pioneer Motorola, you’ll mainly see trendy women posing with the devices.

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But are young people – specifically young women – really the demographic that’s most taken with foldables and flip phones? Or are manufacturers’ ads missing their target audience? Sales figures from Galaxus and Digitec seem to point to the latter. Half of those who’ve bought a flip phone or foldable on the site is age 45 or over. As for other kinds of smartphones, less than four in ten customers fall into this age bracket. The percentage of flip-phone buyers under 25 is also half the proportion accounting for sales of smartphones with a fixed screen.

Mobile phone advertising also fails to square up with reality when it comes to gender. The proportion of male buyers of foldables is even higher than for other smartphones – only two out of ten people who’ve bought a Samsung Galaxy Fold or a Google Pixel Fold this year are women.

«The true target group for flip phones and foldables is older businessmen,» says Andrea Jacob, the woman responsible for the mobile phone range on Digitec and Galaxus. She gives three reasons for this:

The devices are relatively pricey: «A new-generation foldable costs well over 1,000 Swiss francs or euros.» Google’s latest flagship, the Pixel 9 Pro Fold, currently goes for about 1,700 Swiss francs or euros. «Younger people on tighter budgets will think twice about whether forking out so much for a foldable is worthwhile.»
The sausage-finger factor: «Many older people appreciate having more keyboard space for typing messages.»
The over-45s are more likely to be long-sighted than their younger counterparts. «By enlarging fonts and pictures when they flip open their phone, they’re less likely to need their reading glasses.»

Despite these advantages, foldables and flip phones are still niche products. So far this year, only 0.5 per cent of all smartphones sold have fallen into those categories (0.2% fold, 0.3% flip). However, the latest models from Samsung, Google, Xiaomi, Oppo, Oneplus and Motorola have brought new momentum to the market. After a dip last year, foldable sales have grown by 540 per cent, while flip phone sales have increased by 220 per cent – albeit at a relatively modest level in terms of unit sales.

According to Andrea, it remains to be seen whether foldables and flip phones will find their way out of the niche zone once they become more affordable: «Prices will drop when Chinese brands start launching more foldables and flip phones. As a result of that competition, the phones are likely to catch the attention of customers on tighter budgets.» Nevertheless, Andrea estimates that foldables and flip phones will achieve a maximum market share of two per cent in Europe over the next three years.

What do you think of foldables and flip phones? Have you seen them around lately? Are you planning on buying one? Or did you jump on the foldable trend a while back? The comments section’s all yours!

Header image: Motorola

96 people like this article

Alex Hämmerli

Senior Public Relations Manager

Alex.Haemmerli@digitecgalaxus.ch

At Digitec and Galaxus, I’m in charge of communication with journalists and bloggers. Good stories are my passion – I am always up to date.

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