It turns out that making a phone thinner doesn’t automatically make it more popular. Reports suggest the iPhone Air hasn’t sold well, and now it appears Samsung’s Galaxy S25 Edge, a phone launched as a direct competitor to the iPhone Air, hasn’t performed much better.
In an interview with Bloomberg, Won-Joon Choi, chief operating officer of Samsung’s Mobile Experience Business, said that the sales for Galaxy S25 Edge were “relatively lower than other lineups.” He attributed the lower sales numbers to the small battery pack, which provides lower endurance than the company’s other offering.
Samsung hasn’t decided whether there will be a Galaxy S26 Edge. As Choi put it, “People have different tastes and requirements and different criteria in selecting their device,” and the sales numbers suggest that an ultra-thin phone clearly isn’t everyone’s top concern.
Samsung’s foldable dilemma
Recently, Samsung released its first Galaxy TriFold, an engineering marvel in itself. However, its exorbitant $2,900 price tag has kept buyers at bay. While the phone appears to have sold out on Samsung’s website, the company is unsure if it will be making another one.
Choi said the TriFold was initially about “creating a new category and putting all of our know-how into this.” Now, however, the company is rethinking its next move. “Now we wonder, should we develop a new one? We have not made a decision yet.”
While we might not see another TriFold this year, we are getting a new fold design, one I am pretty excited about. We learned from the leaks that Samsung is planning to release a passport-style, wider version of its Galaxy Fold, and Choi has all but confirmed it.
Choi noted that user priorities vary. “All these productivity-related experiences, some people care about. And others are like ‘I want to watch Netflix or YouTube on a bigger screen,’” he said, adding, “Obviously, if you have a TriFold kind of aspect ratio, it’s optimized for that kind of experience and application.”
With no second-generation TriFold on the roadmap, a wider Galaxy Fold feels like the obvious move for Samsung to target users who want a better media consumption experience.
What does this mean for us
If you’re not waiting for a foldable and were thinking about upgrading to a new Galaxy Edge, there’s little reason to hold off. The Galaxy S26 series is the safer bet right now, and the Galaxy S26 Ultra is worth it for the privacy screen alone.
As for me, I’ll be holding out for the wider Samsung Galaxy Fold that’s all but guaranteed to arrive later this year. I loved the original Google Pixel Fold’s aspect ratio, and I’m excited to see how Samsung approaches it.