Gartner squints into its crystal ball: A pholdable phuture is very far away

Gartner has predicted foldable phones will capture a puny 5 per cent of the flagship market by 2023.

"We remain very cautious, for different reasons," Roberta Cozza, research director at Gartner told us. "It will take several iterations before they are reliable and durable."

These reasons boil down to manufacturing, materials and software support.

"The manufacturing process is very complex – even with [strong] demand, they would find it very difficult to meet that demand," she added. "The material used for the display is plastic and plastics are very prone to scratches," she added.

The ecosystem of support is also in its infancy.

"The foldable is the holy grail of having 'the tablet being in your phone' – but you still need to show people the value of paying a premium for a foldable unit," said Cozza. "Features like app continuity that Samsung has showed – where the apps will need to be seamless across the screens. Those partners need to find ways to deliver something beneficial."

Overall, Gartner sees 2019 as a continuing year of decline in mature markets, but is more bullish about 2020. A bit but not much, for Gartner expects the average lifetime of a high-end smartphone to increase from 2.6 to 2.8 years, through 2023.

The reason for the slump is not just longer replacement life cycles, but a more "dynamic" mid-market.

"There are more vendors, more players and more brands here," Cozza pointed out. "The Chinese brands' cost structure has allowed them to offer at affordable prices some of the features you couldn't afford unless you bought an iPhone or Galaxy S."

"Users aren't replacing within that category – they don't feel the need, even if they can afford it, to pay the extra just to buy higher up in the tiers. They're happy to stay in the mid-range," she said, citing the example of Huawei's Honor brand scooping No.1 spot in the market in a number of European countries.

"If you look at the mid-range, there's everything you need there, and you don't need to pay £800 to £1,000."

Something, anything, needs to breathe new life into the smartmobe sector, because it is forecast to dip 0.5 per cent year on year to 1.802 billion units in 2019, grow to 1.824 billion in 2020 and shrink to 1.798 billion by 2021. In a market typified by a lack of differentiation, foldable devices are a fresh direction, albeit for the high-end purchaser.

"Users have reached a threshold for new technology and applications," said Cozza. "As a result, we expect the high-end mobile phone market to continue to show a decline in mature markets during 2019."

So far, Samsung and Huawei and some rivals have given brief flashes of their bendy handsets. Others are expected to follow suit to help "re-inject innovation" into the sector, said Gartner.

Cozza said foldables would remain niche for the next half a decade due to "several challenges" including a screen that may scratch more easily and price being seen as a "barrier" to wider adoption.

"Currently priced at $2,000, foldable phones present too many trade-offs, even for many early technology adopters," she said.

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