Samsung’s latest Apple ad is weirdly friendly

Samsung had a choice hours before Apple's foldable debut: needle its rival the way it always has, or do something stranger. It picked a stranger.

The "Welcome to Foldables” campaign has seen Samsung advertising its own 2026 range using some of the world’s most costly billboard space in locations such as Times Square, Piccadilly Circus, and Shibuya rather than making direct assaults on Apple.

Where in 2011 Samsung used ads featuring people waiting in queue for the iPhone 4S and in 2012 published full-page ads stating “it doesn’t take a genius” in reference to the iPhone 5, this time it sounds more like a celebration than mockery.

Samsung says pre-orders for this year's Galaxy Z series are running 21% ahead of last year, with the Galaxy Z Fold 8 alone accounting for nearly 40% of that volume.

After seven years and multiple generations of folding hardware, that's Samsung's argument for why "welcome" is the right word rather than "watch out"; it's already won enough customers to afford magnanimity.

Not mentioned in the ad campaign: The folding display technology being used in Apple's iPhone Duo comes from none other than Samsung Display. Regardless of whether the foldable Apple beats the Fold 8 in sales, Samsung gains from the deal in any case, a situation where "welcome" is less a gesture of good faith and more of a company with its bases covered.

If the iPhone Duo starts at $2,000 as rumoured, it undercuts the Fold 8 Ultra but lands $100 above the standard Fold 8, a narrow gap that will likely come down to software, not hardware, since both companies are now working with comparable folding screens.