Samsung’s Record Chip Profits Are Quietly Pricing Its New Z Fold 8

Samsung unveils the Galaxy Z Fold 8 lineup in London today, hours after its own chip division posted the biggest quarterly profit any tech company has ever reported. The keynote streams at 9 a.m. ET, 6 a.m. PT and 2 p.m. BST under the tagline “A New Shape Unfolds.” Three foldables are expected, alongside new watches and a possible first look at Samsung’s smart glasses.

The same memory chip shortage inflating the Z Fold 8’s price tag just handed Samsung’s semiconductor unit record earnings of 89.4 trillion won, or about $58.4 billion, for the second quarter. That’s roughly 19 times what the division made a year earlier, and it lands the same week Samsung asks buyers to pay more for foldables built from that same scarce memory.

Three Foldables, One New Shape

Samsung is expected to bring three distinct foldable bodies to the London stage, more than it has ever unveiled at once. The Galaxy Z Fold 8 is the new shape: a wider, shorter book-style phone built to feel more like an ordinary smartphone when closed. The Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra carries over the tall, narrow silhouette every Fold has used since 2019. A Galaxy Z Flip 8 clamshell rounds out the trio, continuing Samsung’s rivalry with Motorola’s Razr line.

Samsung has already confirmed one piece of the story ahead of time: the display. A technology it calls Flex Titanium is meant to make the Fold’s main screen thinner, tougher and less creased down the middle. CNET senior editor Moe Long saw early Flex Titanium panels during a visit to Samsung Display’s headquarters in Korea last month and found the crease noticeably less visible than on the Z Fold 7.

Samsung also showed him how it tests that durability. Fold 8 panels went through a machine built to survive 500,000 folds while cycling through temperatures from negative 20 to 60 degrees Celsius, or negative 4 to 140 Fahrenheit. A separate ball drop test drops a marble-sized weight onto the display to check that it won’t crack under everyday use.

Samsung’s Chip Division Just Posted the Biggest Quarter in Tech History

Samsung’s preliminary guidance, released July 7, put second-quarter operating profit at 89.4 trillion won on revenue of 171 trillion won. A year earlier, the same quarter produced just 4.68 trillion won in profit on 74.57 trillion won in revenue. It marked Samsung’s third consecutive record quarter and beat analyst estimates of roughly 87.3 trillion won.

Samsung’s Device Solutions unit, the division that makes DRAM, NAND and high-bandwidth memory chips for AI data centers, is driving nearly all of it. In the first quarter, that chip unit alone generated over 93% of Samsung’s total profit. Samsung’s mobile division sits on the other side of that same ledger, facing margin pressure from the higher chip costs its sister division is profiting from. Full segment-level results are due July 30.

The Memory Shortage Sets the Z Fold 8’s Price Tag

Every foldable Samsung shows off today is priced against a memory market that has stopped behaving normally. Research firm Gartner projects a 130% surge in combined memory prices by year end, which it expects to raise smartphone prices about 13% compared with last year. The firm also expects that squeeze to concentrate buyer demand on premium devices, exactly the segment where Samsung’s foldables live.

Counterpoint Research separately forecasts average smartphone selling prices climbing 6.9% this year, with global shipments falling 2.1% as buyers hold onto older phones. TrendForce has tracked mobile LPDDR5X memory prices rising 78% to 83% quarter over quarter earlier this year, a pace it expects to cool only slightly, to 13% to 18% growth, in the current quarter. For context, memory alone can eat 10% to 20% of a phone’s total bill of materials, according to IDC.

That mechanism shows up directly in the Z Fold 8 leaks. Multiple reports put the new, wider Z Fold 8 near $1,899 to start, with the Fold 8 Ultra around $2,099, about $100 above the Z Fold 7’s $1,999 launch price last year. The Z Flip 8 is leaked between $1,099 and $1,199, depending on the source.

Luxury customizer Caviar has already jumped ahead of Samsung’s own confirmation, building a $13,130 bespoke edition of a phone Samsung hasn’t officially priced, a bet that shows how far the hype has outrun the actual keynote.

What’s Confirmed, and What’s Still Just a Leak

Samsung has verified the date, the city and the display technology. Everything about naming, specs and pricing still comes from leaks, however consistent they’ve become across outlets.

• Confirmed: The July 22 London event, the 2 p.m. BST start time and the Flex Titanium display technology Samsung teased directly
• Confirmed: Samsung’s reservation program, offering a $30 credit and sweepstakes entry to early sign-ups
• Still unconfirmed: Final US pricing for any of the three foldables or either watch
• Still unconfirmed: Whether Galaxy Glasses appear on stage at all, versus a teaser for later in the year
• Still unconfirmed: Exact battery and processor specs for the Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 and Watch 9

Regulatory filings add one more layer of certainty underneath the leaks. Model numbers tied to FCC and Bluetooth SIG records point to separate hardware for each device rather than a single phone with two names, which matches Samsung’s own framing of the Fold 8 as a genuinely new shape.

When Will Apple’s Foldable iPhone Arrive?

Supply chain reports place Apple’s first foldable iPhone at a September 2026 unveiling, roughly two months after Samsung’s London event. Apple hasn’t confirmed a price or a name, and analysts are split on whether the device will be called the iPhone Fold or iPhone Ultra.

Samsung has gone toe to toe with Motorola on foldables since 2020 and has outpaced Google, Xiaomi and other rivals in the US market. London being Samsung’s venue of choice this year isn’t incidental. Europe is Apple’s strongest premium smartphone market, and launching there first lets Samsung’s foldables sit on shelves before Apple’s own first attempt at the format even ships.

Samsung holds real advantages heading into that fight: years of production experience, an economy of scale that supports pricier chips and camera hardware, and a three-shape foldable lineup already on sale. Whether that’s enough depends on how convincingly Apple executes a category it has never shipped before.

Samsung Leans on Watches, Glasses and Spider-Man

Leaked images of the Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 and Galaxy Watch 9 look close to unchanged on the outside. SamMobile has reported a beefier 784-mAh cell for the Ultra 2, marketed as 800 mAh, roughly a third bigger than the current 590-mAh battery. The standard Watch 9 is reportedly getting a bigger change under the hood, swapping its Exynos chip for Snapdragon silicon.

Samsung is also expected to lean hard on AI framing across the lineup. The company has said its devices will bring “more personal, adaptive experiences,” language that lines up with the personalized-AI push already underway at Google, a longtime Samsung software partner. Samsung CEO TM Roh has already called the Galaxy S26 an “agentic AI phone,” and Wednesday’s keynote is expected to extend that pitch to the Fold and Flip.

Marketing has taken an unusually literal turn this cycle. Samsung partnered with Columbia Pictures and Marvel Studios to promote Spider-Man: Brand New Day alongside the new foldables, including a teaser video in which Spider-Man’s computer prints out a Z Flip 8 and Z Fold 8 for him to test. BTS member J-hope added an unplanned assist, filming himself with a Z Fold 8 backstage during a Paris sound check in what became a leaked, later-deleted Instagram clip, continuing a five-year Samsung ambassador pattern for the group.

• Actor Sydney Sweeney appeared in the audience at Samsung’s 2024 Paris Unpacked event
• BTS members have attended multiple Unpacked keynotes over the years
• Samsung released a dedicated Galaxy S20 Plus BTS Edition phone
• Tom Holland, a Spider-Man cast member and Britain native, is the speculative pick for a London cameo this time

Frequently Asked Questions

What’s the difference between the Galaxy Z Fold 8 and the Z Fold 8 Ultra?

They’re two separate devices, not one phone under two names. Regulatory filings tie model number SM-F971 to the wider Z Fold 8 and SM-F976 to the Z Fold 8 Ultra, which carries over the tall, book-style shape Samsung has used since the Fold 7.

When can I preorder the Z Fold 8, and when does it ship?

Reservations are already open on Samsung’s site for a $30 credit and sweepstakes entry. Based on Samsung’s usual pattern, the Z Fold 7 went from a July reveal to store shelves about two weeks later, so the Fold 8 lineup likely ships in early August.

Why are memory chip prices rising so much this year?

AI data centers need high-bandwidth memory chips, and every stack Samsung, SK Hynix or Micron produces for that market uses up DRAM manufacturing capacity that would otherwise go to phones and PCs. Micron has said it’s essentially sold out of memory production for the rest of the year.

When is Apple’s foldable iPhone expected, and will it undercut Samsung on price?

Supply chain reports point to a September 2026 unveiling for Apple’s first foldable iPhone. Apple hasn’t confirmed a price, so any direct comparison with the Z Fold 8 lineup stays speculation until both companies post official numbers.

Is Samsung raising prices on last year’s Z Fold 7 too?

Yes, in a smaller way. Samsung already raised the price of the Z Fold 7’s 512GB and 1TB storage tiers by $80 earlier this year, and trade-in values for older foldables typically drop the day after a new Unpacked event, so anyone hoping for a Fold 7 discount should act before today’s keynote wraps.