Samsung to get jump on Apple’s first foldable with new phones in July

SAMSUNG Electronics Co. will host its next Galaxy Unpacked event on July 22, when the leading foldable phone maker is expected to unveil a Galaxy Z Fold 8 with a shorter and wider design that resembles Apple Inc.’s planned folding iPhone.

The Unpacked event will be in London, according to an invite that Samsung sent to media on Tuesday. During its presentation, the company will introduce a slate of devices likely to include three foldable phones, along with wearables such as a smartwatch and clip-on wireless earbuds.

Samsung is expected to debut incremental successors to the Galaxy Z Fold 7, which unfolds like a book, and the clamshell-style Galaxy Z Flip 7. The shorter, passport-shaped variant of the Fold 8 will be added to the lineup as a third option.

By adding a device that’s shorter and wider, Samsung will offer a form factor that’s more immersive when watching videos and better for some multitasking workflows. The event invitation includes an obvious nod to the new design, and Samsung has also been teasing it across its own social media channels in recent days.

With an announcement in late July, Samsung is aiming to steal at least some momentum from Apple, which is set to introduce its first-ever foldable later this year. That long-awaited device will be among the first major new products to launch under John Ternus, who will become Apple’s next chief executive officer in September.

Samsung pioneered the folding phone category, though sales and overall market share for this segment remain tiny compared with conventional, slab-style smartphones.

Earlier on Tuesday, Alphabet Inc.’s Google revealed that its next Pixel hardware event will take place on Aug. 12 in New York. While Apple and Samsung will each offer fresh hardware styles, Google is likely to present handsets that are outwardly similar to their recent predecessors, leaning on new software features and Android’s agentic artificial intelligence capabilities to stand out.

Google’s original Pixel Fold had a squat design that its competitors are now emulating. But as it has done for the past two years, the search giant is likely to stick with a tall, more narrow design for its next folding model.

Samsung on Tuesday announced record profit of 89.4 trillion won ($58 billion) for the June quarter, a 19-fold jump that was largely spurred by the AI boom and infrastructure build-out.

The technology giant has also had to contend with a memory chip shortage that has driven up prices across the consumer electronics industry. In April, the company raised the price of some configurations of the Galaxy Z Fold 7, and another price hike could conceivably accompany the new models later this month. — Bloomberg