Apple had barely finished talking about the iPhone 18 Pro when Samsung’s US arm posted on X: “So far, so same,” with a hashtag telling people it was time to switch. The taunts continued through Apple’s September 9 event, timed to land exactly as the company showed its new phones.
Before Apple’s foldable segment, Samsung wrote that it would wait, because it was already over there with three folds, a reference to its Galaxy Z TriFold. After the iPhone Duo appeared, Samsung posted: “Tell me when you’ve reheated our leftovers.”
Samsung also mocked Apple’s naming, suggesting the iPhone Duo borrowed from the language-learning app Duolingo. Duolingo then joined in with its own jab: “iPhone Duo costs $1999, the Duo on your phone is free.”
The exchange is marketing theater, but it is built on a real market shift. Samsung has sold foldables for years and watched Apple stay out of the category. Apple’s entry validates a segment that still accounts for only about 2 percent of global phone sales, and Samsung’s position is that it got there first.
The data gives Samsung some reason to be confident. CNBC reported that the Galaxy Z Fold8 line has pulled iOS users to switch at 1.6 times the rate of the previous generation. Apple’s foldable launch appears to be pushing at least some of its own users to look at Samsung’s devices.
Analysts said Apple’s entry could expand the category in a way Samsung alone never did. Foldables have been a premium niche, held back by price and durability concerns. Apple brings its supply chain, its retail network, and a customer base willing to pay flagship prices, which could push foldables from 2 percent of the market toward something larger.
For Samsung, the short term is ambiguous. A rival that makes the category mainstream also educates customers Samsung can then win. The iOS switcher numbers suggest that is already happening, as foldable-curious Apple users weigh a $1999 Duo against a Galaxy Z Fold8.
The mockery also signals how the two companies now compete. Samsung has long run attack ads against Apple, but the speed and timing here, posting in real time during Apple’s own event, is a sharper version of the play. Social media turns a product launch into a shared screen, and Samsung is writing the commentary.
Apple has not responded, and it rarely does. The company’s pattern is to ignore the taunts and let the products argue. Whether the iPhone Duo succeeds will be decided by shipments and switcher data, not by the exchange on X.
Samsung earned its taunts the hard way. Its first Galaxy Fold, announced in February 2019, broke in reviewers’ hands within days, and the company pulled the launch, recalled the review units, and re-released the device in September after reinforcing the screen. The episode is remembered as a stumble, but it gave Samsung a head start in the hinge and display engineering a foldable phone depends on, and no rival has caught up in volume.
The market Samsung now defends is small but contested. Foldables account for roughly 2 percent of global phone sales, and within that slice Samsung has been the leader, but Chinese makers including Huawei and Honor have pushed thinner designs and lower prices, and Motorola has claimed the lower-priced end. Apple’s entry changes the math: a credible Apple foldable could grow the whole category rather than merely shift share inside it.
The stakes go beyond hardware. A foldable Apple customer buys into a suite of payments, messaging, and subscriptions, and once that person switches to Samsung, the cost of switching back is high. The CNBC data showing iOS users defecting at 1.6 times the previous rate suggests the foldable is doing exactly that, pulling Apple loyalists over the wall at the moment Apple is trying to keep them.
The Duolingo exchange was more than a joke. Apple priced the iPhone Duo at $1,999, well above the Galaxy Z Fold8, and Samsung’s naming jab was aimed at making the price gap part of the conversation. Duolingo’s quip that its own Duo is free let a language-learning app inherit attention from Apple’s launch, a small measure of how thoroughly the foldable announcement owned the feed.
Samsung’s needling of Apple is older than the foldable. The company ran years of attack ads against the iPhone, most famously the ‘next big thing’ spots that made waiting in line for an Apple launch the punchline. Those campaigns slowed as Samsung’s own flagship sales flattened, but the foldable gave the rivalry a new front, and the X account has become its loudest channel.
What the episode makes clear is that the foldable fight is now open. Samsung spent years alone in the category, and it is not going to cede the narrative now that Apple has finally shown up. The next round will be measured in market share, and both companies will be counting the switchers.
