Samsung now thinks it sold either 400,000 or 500,000 Galaxy Folds, but it’s not sure

A month after Samsung executive Young Sohn wrongly claimed the company had sold 1 million Galaxy Fold phones, it has returned with another sales estimate at CES 2020. “I think we’ve sold 400,000 to 500,000 Galaxy Fold smartphones,” Samsung co-CEO DJ Koh told Korea’s Yonhap News Agency.

Given that Koh runs Samsung’s entire mobile phone division, it’s likely that his number is closer to the mark when it comes to the actual number of Galaxy Folds sold so far. But Koh’s number is still frustratingly vague. Surely the co-CEO of Samsung has a better idea of how many of the company’s most cutting-edge and experimental phones were sold than “400,000 to 500,000”?

It’s not just a matter of nitpicking, either: Samsung previously said that its goal in 2019 was to sell half a million Folds. There’s a big difference between selling 400,000 Folds and missing that goal or 500,000 devices and hitting it. And vagueness around exact numbers is exactly what led to the flood of misinformation the first time around, with the incorrect 1 million Folds sold number. (In that case, the company claimed that Sohn had confused Samsung’s original sale target of 1 million devices with the actual number sold.)

In either case, 400,000 to 500,000 Folds sold is still impressive, even if it pales in comparison to other Samsung smartphones and even more niche Samsung devices, like its pricier 5G variants of the S10 and Note 10. Samsung recently announced that it sold 6.7 million 5G phones in 2019, far outpacing Galaxy Fold numbers.

Still, given the months of delays around the Galaxy Fold and the drama surrounding its release, with Samsung canceling its original launch after review units (including our own) began to break for a variety of reasons. The company would go on to redesign several aspects to the Galaxy Fold to prevent these issues, with the phone launching in September 2019, months after the original April 2019 date.

Despite the seemingly lackluster sales, the initial Galaxy Fold is expected to merely be the start of Samsung’s foldable ambitions. The company is rumored to have multiple other foldable phones in the works, with talks of a vertically folding clamshell foldable planned to launch alongside the Galaxy S20 at an event in February.