Galaxy Z Fold 8 sales in South Korea reportedly rose about 10% in the week after Apple unveiled the iPhone Duo, compared with the preceding week. The change came as Korean buyers weighed Samsung’s foldable against Apple’s first foldable iPhone—and the price difference was impossible to ignore.
What the reported 10% increase covers
The figure applies to Galaxy Z Fold 8 sales in South Korea during one week, compared with the previous week. It is not a worldwide sales result, and no absolute unit total accompanies the percentage.
Telecommunications-industry sources said some consumers may have postponed buying a foldable until Apple revealed its device, then selected the Galaxy Z Fold 8 instead. That explanation remains a possibility rather than a demonstrated cause of the sales movement.
The timing matters because the iPhone Duo gave Korean shoppers a direct new alternative in the same premium foldable category. Samsung’s phone was already on sale when Apple’s unveiling arrived, putting the two products into an unusually sharp local comparison.
The Korean price gap between the two 256GB foldables
The reported South Korean prices put the Galaxy Z Fold 8 well below the comparable iPhone Duo configuration:
| Model | Storage | Reported South Korean price |
| Galaxy Z Fold 8 | 256GB | ₩2.28 million |
| iPhone Duo | 256GB | ₩3.29 million |
The difference is ₩1.01 million, or just over ₩1 million. For shoppers already considering both devices, that gap could make Samsung’s model easier to justify, especially if the deciding factor is access to a large foldable display rather than loyalty to a particular operating system.
The iPhone Duo’s reported Korean price reaches ₩5.09 million in the 2TB configuration. That figure belongs to a different storage tier and is not directly comparable with the 256GB Fold 8 price.
Why the Fold 8 may have won some buyers
The Galaxy Z Fold 8’s appeal is not limited to its price. The phone uses a 4:3 inner display and a 5.5-inch cover screen, giving it a squarer, more compact profile than the tall, narrow shape associated with earlier foldables. The design makes the closed phone easier to frame as a conventional handset while preserving a tablet-like screen when opened.
Its productivity pitch is also distinctive. Samsung DeX provides a desktop-style interface when the phone is connected to a larger display, and the Fold 8 supports three-window multitasking. Those tools give the device a practical advantage for people who use a foldable as a work machine, not merely as a larger screen for video and apps.
The trade-offs are real. The Fold 8 does not include a telephoto camera, so camera hardware may matter more to buyers who prioritize zoom photography than to those focused on multitasking or portability.
Samsung’s strong preorder backdrop
The later sales report followed a substantial Korean preorder showing. Samsung said its Galaxy Z Fold 8, Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra and Galaxy Z Flip 8 generated 1.44 million South Korean preorders during the seven-day period from July 28 through August 3, 2026.
The standard Galaxy Z Fold 8 accounted for about 70% of that combined Korean preorder total. That model mix helps explain why the regular Fold 8—not only Samsung’s broader foldable lineup—was at the center of the later market reaction.
