The iPhone Fold is already in production, but when it lands may come down to Apple fixing its reported hinge design issues. But before you put down $2,000 for one, there's another number worth knowing: new research shows that a $2,000 foldable iPhone could lose as much as $1,292 in its first year if it follows the depreciation trends of every foldable that came before it.
The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 is one of the worst performing foldables when it comes to resale value. Photographer: SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg
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Resale marketplace SellCell analysed the 12-month resale performance of flagship smartphones from Apple, Samsung, Google, Motorola and OnePlus, comparing foldables against traditional phones. The picture for foldables isn't pretty.
Foldable owners lose an average of $997.69 after one year, which is nearly $400 more than the $605.32 lost by traditional slab-shaped smartphone owners. In percentage terms, foldables lose 64.6% of their value within 12 months, compared to 55.3% for standard phones. That means foldables retain just 35.4% of their launch price after a year, against 44.7% for regular flagships.
Five of the six largest value losses in the study came from foldable devices. The single worst performer was the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold6 1TB, which shed $1,479.99 in value within a year.
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There is, however, slightly more to the story. Apple's track record on resale value is significantly better than any other manufacturer, as we’ve seen from other similar studies.
The iPhone 16 lineup retained 51.5% of its value after 12 months, which was the strongest of any major manufacturer, ahead of OnePlus (46.8%), Google (40.8%), Samsung (39.5%) and Motorola (24.5%). Nine of the ten best-performing devices for value retention in the study were iPhones.
That matters because the $1,292 loss figure assumes the iPhone Fold depreciates at the same rate as other Android foldables. If Apple can replicate its iPhone 16 retention performance on a foldable, the first-year loss could be closer to $970. Now, that’s not a number I’d break out the champagne for, but it’s over $300 less than an Android foldable phone. That, of course, is the best case scenario.
There’s a decent argument on either side. Firstly, the data makes a strong case for waiting. First-generation foldables have historically been the worst performers for resale.
Not just because they’re foldables, but because version one of anything tends to drop faster once the next iteration lands. The kinks have been ironed out and the very existence of a second device means something worked first time around. It’s why 'new and improved’ is such an overused marketing phrase.
Buying the iPhone Fold at launch means taking the full depreciation hit on the chin for an unproven product category for Apple.
With that said, Apple typically doesn’t discount its hardware. So if you want to wait until the iPhone Fold is cheaper to shrink that depreciation value gap, that day may never arrive. Unless, of course, it bombs like the iPhone Air did, which ultimately saw discounts in China and repeated price drops on third party U.S. retailers. Either way, the data suggests the iPhone Fold is a device to buy because you love it, not because you're expecting to get your money back.
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