Five. That’s how many folding phones Samsung reportedly wants to sell next year, according to ETNews sources. The Z Fold8 did well enough that Samsung already bumped this year’s production target up by a million units, so somebody in Suwon clearly likes where this is heading.
Here’s the lineup as reported: the Z Fold9, a second wide-screen foldable no one saw coming, the Z Fold9 Ultra, the Z Flip9, and a follow-up to the Galaxy Z TriFold.
That fourth one matters. Reports had been circling for months saying the Flip8 would be the last of its kind, that Samsung was quietly done with clamshells. Apparently not. A separate leak from a couple weeks ago backs it up, listing internal codename B9 alongside H9 – and since the Flip8 was B8 and the Fold8 was H8, the pattern is hard to misread.
So what’s the second wide foldable for? Video, basically. The Fold8’s inner screen is 4:3, which is lovely for photos, web pages and reading, but films are usually 21:9 or wider, so you end up watching a small picture surrounded by black bars. Samsung apparently wants a model shaped better for that. It’s at the inception stage though, meaning nothing about it is settled yet.
The TriFold sequel is the other interesting one. The first Galaxy Z TriFold was more of an experiment, sold in limited quantities, and ETNews says the next one is targeting a screen size close to the original’s 9.96-inch panel. Wider release this time, probably. Cheaper, don’t bet on it.
One loose end worth flagging: that codename leak listed five projects, and one of them, Z9, doesn’t match any Fold or Flip naming Samsung has used. Some sources think it’s a rollable, and more tablet than phone. Whether that’s the same fifth device ETNews is counting, or a sixth thing entirely, no one knows yet.
