In 2014, Apple and Samsung were duking it out to rule the U.S. smartphone market. Samsung was selling devices with large screens, and iPhone fans were demanding a response.
It took Apple a while, but the corporate finally released the iPhone 6, breaking with previous iterations and giving consumers a large-screen option. The iPhone won.
But greater than a decade later, recent smartphone sales and shipment figures signal that the Apple-Samsung fight has returned. And once more, it’s all concerning the screen.
Within the second quarter, shipments from Samsung surged within the U.S., with its market share rising from 23% to 31% from the prior period, based on data from Canalys. Apple’s market share throughout the quarter declined to 49% from 56%.
Apple stays on top of the U.S. smartphone market, taking nearly all of latest smartphone sales within the U.S. It’s often in second place world wide, however the recent slips points to turbulence for Apple for the primary time in well over a decade.
That is one reason investors have sent Apple shares down 7.5% this yr, underperforming all the U.S. megacap tech corporations apart from Tesla. Samsung’s stock, meanwhile, is up about 35% in 2025.
Apple reported a 13% increase in year-over-year iPhone sales in its July earnings.
In July, Samsung introduced a pair of modern latest phones that feature foldable screens. One model, the Z Fold 7, can effectively turn right into a tablet, while the Z Flip resembles an old-school flip phone with modern smartphone features. They were added to Samsung’s catalog of phones released this spring under its Galaxy brand, including a thin-and-light phone called the Galaxy S25 Edge.
The devices are also getting numerous traction on social media, particularly around durability tests.
One user posted a livestream that showed him bending the Z Fold 7 over 200,000 times in a row. The video has been clipped and shared widely on social media, with one version of the clip accumulating greater than 15 million views on YouTube.
Up to now month, Samsung’s premium devices, including the Z Fold 7, were mentioned over 50,000 times on social media, and 83% of those mentions were positive or neutral, based on data from Sprout Social, a social media analytics company.
The market share numbers aren’t just the results of user preferences. Much of the shift in shipment figures within the June quarter, analysts said, could be attributed to tariffs, that are causing “disruption” within the industry as smartphone makers use different strategies to attenuate the impact on their business.
But Samsung’s gains also reflect the corporate’s ability to supply a much wider range of products at different prices in comparison with Apple. That features low-end phones, which accounted for much of Samsung’s second-quarter U.S. improvement, in addition to high-end devices that cost greater than any individual iPhone.
Samsung’s Galaxy and Z phone lineup “stretches from $650 as much as $2,400. That could be a massive span of devices,” said Canalys analyst Runar Bjorhovde. “There’s an idea which you can goal people at each price point, and you may meet them at every spot.”
The iPhone has just about looked the identical since 2017 — an oblong piece of glass with a touchscreen on the front, and a number of cameras on the back. Nowadays, the corporate offers a series of 4 slates starting from $829 to $1,599. Samsung and others are beginning to transcend the so-called candy bar shape and experimenting with latest form aspects.
Apple is predicted to start out doing the identical — starting with a possible launch next month of a slimmer iPhone that may compete with Samsung’s Galaxy Edge.
“Apple is clearly betting that its 5.5mm Air model goes to lift its fortunes as testing suggests a powerful desire for the brand new form factor,” wrote Loop Capital managing director John Donovan in May.
JPMorgan Chase analyst Samik Chatterjee wrote in a report last month that Apple may release a folding phone next yr to compete with Samsung’s Z Fold.
“Investor focus has already turned to the 2026 fall launches with Apple expected to launch its first foldable iPhone as a part of the iPhone 18 lineup in September 2026,” Chatterjee wrote.
Trying latest form aspects offers Apple the chance to sell devices at higher prices, based on Bjorhovde.
Apple’s most costly phone, the iPhone 16 Pro Max, currently starts at $1,199 for 256GB of storage and might go as much as $1,599 for a version with 1TB of storage. The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7, which was announced last week, starts at $1,999 for the 256GB version and tops out at $2,419 for the 1TB version.
Chatterjee said he thinks Apple’s version of a folding phone could start at $1,999.
An individual holds a Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 phone during an event in Latest York, U.S., July 8, 2025.
Jeenah Moon | Reuters
Folding phones finally mature
Samsung’s first folding phone was released in 2019, but got off to a rocky start. The initial launch was delayed after reviewers — including CNBC — discovered that the early devices would break along their folding crease.
But Samsung says this time is different, and that folding phones are finally able to go mainstream, especially with respect to durability.
“There really are not any longer trade-offs towards owning a foldable device,” said Drew Blackard, vp of mobile product management at Samsung Electronics America.
The South Korean company doesn’t provide sales numbers, but Blackard said the Galaxy Z Fold 7, the newest version, had 25% more preorders than any previous Samsung folding phone and that sales are outpacing the device’s predecessor by nearly 50%.
“Samsung with the foldable is in a position to actually optimize for innovation,” said Bjorhovde. “Attempt to be ahead, show that something is different, and there is a certain halo effect from that.”
In response to Counterpoint Research, a firm that estimates smartphone sales to customers, Samsung’s sell-through increased 16% throughout the June quarter, due to demand for high-end devices, including a “slight boost” from the slim S25 Edge.
The rise of artificial intelligence can also be heralding latest form aspects for consumer electronics that would sooner or later replace the iPhone.
OpenAI in May acquired the startup of former Apple design guru Jony Ive for $6.5 billion. The AI startup plans to develop the following generation of hardware, and other AI startups have released pins, pendants and glasses that depend on users’ voice to regulate the devices.
Samsung devices, in addition to other Android phones, get access to Google’s Gemini, which is widely considered to be the most effective AI models alongside OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Gemini has several features that users cannot get with Siri and Apple Intelligence.
Blackard said folding phones, with their larger displays, are well fitted to AI. Google’s circle-to-search feature, which allows a user to easily circle something on the screen that they’d prefer to learn more about, is an example, Blackard said.
On a Samsung folding phone, he said, users can still see the unique screen with the content they circled, in addition to one other screen with supplementary information.
“It’s way more productive with the ability to go backwards and forwards,” Blackard said.
Investors have nervous that Apple’s AI delays, including its next-generation Siri that is now scheduled to come back out next yr, could start hurting sales. But many analysts say that Apple’s brand loyalty and lock-in will give it a period of years before iPhone customers start defecting for competitors.
Chatterjee told CNBC that Apple’s strategy with devices is to attend until a technology is prepared for the mainstream before embracing it. That point could also be now for foldable devices.
Apple has “never been about attempting to be the primary to market,” Chatterjee said. “It’s about being watchful, seeing a technology mature, knowing that there are not any big roadblocks to that technology adoption, after which moving ahead.”
