Samsung said its new foldables are moving faster than last year’s models, with combined European sales for the Galaxy Z Fold 8 and Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra up 45 percent versus the Galaxy Z Fold 7. The company also said the larger foldables now account for about 80 percent of foldable purchases, putting the strongest demand squarely on the biggest devices in the lineup.
That surge matters because search behavior jumped at the same time buyers were watching the market turn. Samsung said search volume for the Z8 series across Europe spiked 460 percent during the week of September 6 to 12, and the iPhone Duo was announced on September 9. Across September, search volume for the Z Fold 8 was up 260 percent, which shows the interest was not a one-day burst but a sustained run through the launch window.
Samsung UK framed the performance as part of a 2026 foldable lineup that is outpacing last year’s models, and the numbers suggest the company’s bigger devices are doing the heavy lifting. Samsung released its first foldable phone in 2019, and the latest figures show how far the category has moved from a niche product to the main driver of foldable sales in Europe.
What Samsung did not spell out is almost as revealing as what it did. The company did not mention Apple or the iPhone Duo in its statement, even though the timing of the search spike lines up with that announcement. Samsung also did not break out how much of the 45 percent increase came from the Galaxy Z Fold 8 versus the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra, leaving the relative strength of each model hidden inside the combined figure.
The US picture is still incomplete. Samsung said last month that US preorders for the Galaxy Z8 series were trending 30 percent higher than last year, but it has not confirmed updated numbers for the market. For now, the cleanest reading is that the European launch is strong, the bigger foldables are leading, and Samsung still has not shown whether that early preorder momentum held through final sales in the US.
