Report says Galaxy S23 selling really well, but Galaxy Z Fold/Flip 5 not so much

Each year, Samsung launches two major flagship phone series: the Galaxy S line and the Galaxy Z line. This year, we saw the Samsung Galaxy S23 family along with the Galaxy Z Fold 5 and the Galaxy Z Flip 5. With these launches all wrapped up and Samsung out of flagships for the year, how are things looking?

Information from a leaker on X (formerly Twitter) gives us a little insight into this. Revegnus posted some numbers allegedly from Hana Securities Co., Ltd., a South Korean financial services company. According to the data, the number of Samsung Galaxy S23 units sold is about 22% higher than we saw for the Galaxy S22 series during the same period. Specifically, that’s an alleged 22.89 million units sold across the entire Galaxy S23 family.

As one would expect, the Galaxy S23 Ultra is the best-seller, according to this data. Here’s how it breaks down:

• Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra units sold: 10.69 million
• Samsung Galaxy S23 Plus units sold: 4.11 million
• Samsung Galaxy S23 units sold: 8.09 million

This is what we expect from the series based on previous years. Even Samsung has repeatedly admitted that the Plus model is always the weakest seller. That leads us to believe that these numbers are probably based on truth.

It will be interesting to see if Samsung can repeat this growth next year with the Galaxy S24 series.

But what about the foldables?

Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like everything is going well with Samsung’s foldable phones. According to Revegnus’ post, the Galaxy Z Fold 5 is not selling as well as the 2022 counterpart during the same period by a significant margin. Meanwhile, the Galaxy Z Flip 5 is basically flat YoY. Check out the differences below:

• 1.25 million units for the Z Fold 5 vs. 1.35 million units for the Z Fold 4 (~8% drop)
• 2.26 million units for the Z Flip 5 vs. 2.28 million units for the Z Flip 4 (~1% drop)

These numbers probably don’t make Samsung very happy. Not only does it mean sales are not way up, like with the number of Samsung Galaxy S23 units sold, but it also means that interest in Samsung foldables has already flatlined. It is very possible that the critical successes of competitors — such as the Pixel Fold and OnePlus Open — are hurting Samsung’s reputation. It doesn’t help that the 2023 foldables are nearly identical to the 2022 versions, which were themselves nearly identical to the 2021 versions.

We expect the Galaxy S24 series to launch in January or February and the newest Samsung foldables to launch in the summer of 2024.