Visitors can check out a foldable smartphone that uses OLED technology during an expo in Shenzhen, Guangdong province. The industry report shows that sales of foldable phones in the Chinese market rose 144.4 percent in 2022 over the previous year.
The sales volume of such phones hit 2.83 million units last year, an increase of nine consecutive quarters, according to a report by research and consulting company CINNO Research.
The report said that the breakout growth was due to dialed-up investment from major smartphone brands and the evolving organic light-emitting diode display technologies in China.
The top seven brands saw their sales increase from a year ago. In 2022, Huawei, the largest in terms of market size, has sold 1.44 million units, up 132 percent, up 132 percent year on year. The surges of OPPO and Xiaomi were 453 percent and 112 percent, respectively.
The report expects the foldable phone market to expand as the product becomes more affordable and more prevalent.
In 2022, sales of foldable phones between 5,000 yuan about $742 and 9,999 yuan accounted for 69 percent of the total volume, up 51 percentage points year-on-year, according to CINNO Research data.