Pre-order numbers prove Samsung has a long way to go with its foldable dreams

A sluggish market doesn’t appear to be slowing down interest in the Galaxy Z Fold 5 or Galaxy Z Flip 5. In fact, it seems that Samsung’s foldables are breaking records and surpassing previous pre-order numbers. Despite the numbers, however, it appears Samsung may still have a long way to go with its foldables.

According to a report from Yonhap News, Samsung says that pre-order sales for the Fold 5 and Flip 5 combined have reached 1.02 million units in South Korea alone. This breaks the South Korean tech giant’s record of 970,000 units, which it achieved with its previous generation.

The report adds that 70% of those preorders — over a span of a week — happen to be orders for the Flip 5. Last year, the Flip 4 accounted for 60% of pre-orders. This appears to show that the clamshell foldable is becoming a clear favorite among consumers.

Something similar happened with the Galaxy S23 series earlier this year. Samsung claimed that pre-orders for the Galaxy S23 series exceeded numbers for the last two generations. It even managed to sell over 1 million units in South Korea with the Ultra accounting for 60% of total pre-orders.

While this is all good news, it may not be as good as Samsung was hoping for. With only a ~30,000 unit difference between this year and last year, Samsung has only managed to achieve about a 3% increase year-over-year. Not bad, but not exactly a booming success either.

On a positive note, we still don’t know how many pre-orders the manufacturer received globally. It’s possible that pre-orders could also be up in other markets as well. But we’ll only know when those figures are released.