Introduction
Samsung is ending 2025 on a high note. The Galaxy S25 series outsold previous generations of S phones and Samsung’s foldables are more popular than ever.
However, there’s trouble brewing underneath the success. As popular as the S25 phones were, they felt like they were in a holding pattern with minor upgrades. And the big experiment this year, the S25 Edge, failed.
As for foldables, the Z Flip7 and Z Fold7 brought much-needed upgrades to the Z series. And look at the Galaxy Z TriFold – that’s certainly a head-turner even if it’s more of a commercially available tech demo than a mass market device. Okay, let’s start from the top.
Winner: Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra
2025 was a strong year for the Galaxy S series – the S25 edition set a pre-order record in South Korea with 1.3 million units. It’s a record for the Galaxy S series, anyway, the all-time highest result is still held by the Galaxy Note10.
A few months after launch, the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra had outsold its two siblings – of the 9.16 million total, 5.08 million were Ultra phones, 2.41 million were vanilla S25 units and a low 1.67 million were the Plus model.
By the end of June, the S25 series had outsold the S24 series by 12.2% during the same time frame. The Galaxy S25 Edge – we will talk about the Edge in a moment – didn’t contribute much. The S25 Ultra posted a 7.1% increase in sales over the S24 Ultra.
Looking back at previous generations, the S24 Ultra easily topped the S23 Ultra. In turn, the S23 series outsold the S22 series. This shows a pattern of increasing sales. Say what you will about the minimal camera upgrades (only the 50MP ultra-wide is new) and the downgraded S Pen (no Bluetooth), but this was the most popular Ultra in years.
Winner: Samsung Galaxy S25
The Samsung Galaxy S25 was actually the phone that improved the most over its predecessor, outselling the S24 by 11.6%, according to the June report. And while it’s not as popular as the Ultra, it outshined the Plus – by the end of June, there were 6.07 million vanilla units sold compared to 3.85 million Plus phones sold. That is a 58% lead!
The vanilla S25 got even fewer upgrades than the Ultra – the switch to 12GB RAM was the biggest one, but the storage stuck with 128GB base capacity. In our S24 vs. S25 article, we noted that the user experience is nearly the same.
The one exception to that was the improved performance of the Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset over the mix of Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 and Exynos 2400. Yes, the S25 series, like the S23 series before it, is all-in on Snapdragon. Did that play a role? Maybe.
Loser: Samsung Galaxy S25+
Maybe “loser” is a bit harsh for the Samsung Galaxy S25+, but with middling sales we can’t call it a winner either. But we can call it this – a survivor. Samsung never officially confirmed it, but it was clear that the intention was to drop the Plus next year and replace it with the Edge.
The S26 Edge has been canceled – again, not officially but reliable rumors say so. So, the S26+ is back on the menu. Will it be more popular than the S25+? We doubt it, but let’s save that for next year’s “Winners and Losers” article.
Loser: Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge
Reports of poor sales for the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge should tell you everything you need to know about why Samsung may have axed the plans for a 2026 Edge. Samsung can take solace in knowing that it was the concept that was bad, not the execution.
Recently, it came out that the iPhone Air sales were so bad that they scared Chinese makers away from making ultra-slim phones. People just aren’t enjoying ultra-slim phones to the point where even the resale value of the Air is tangibly lower than that of other models. Okay, maybe the execution of the Edge and Air was part of the issue too. Either way, the super-slim experiment is over.
Winners: Samsung Galaxy Z Fold7 and Samsung Galaxy Z Flip7
According to Counterpoint Research, global shipments of foldables were up 14% in Q3 2025 compared to the same quarter the previous year. And the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold7 and the Z Flip7 were the best-sellers. Looking at just Samsung’s shipments, the company shipped 32% more foldables in Q3 this year than in Q3 2024 and dominated the market with a 64% share. The closest competitor is Huawei with a 15% share.
Is the Z Fold7 thinner than the Honor Magic V5? Or is it the Honor that is thinner? We’re talking about fractions of a millimeter here, which is good for bragging rights but not much else. The important thing is that at 8.9mm thick and with a weight of 215g, a closed Z Fold7 feels very much like a standard bar phone.
A report from the all-important US market showed that some 30% of Z Fold7 buyers were upgrading from an S Ultra, so some people really are switching away from bar phones. The report also revealed that the Z Fold7 outsold the previous Z Fold by more than 50%. It also stated that the “Z Flip7 is drawing more users from other smartphone brands than any previous Galaxy Flip”.
There are certainly things that can be improved for the next generation (and Samsung is working on some of them), but as far as foldables go, the Z Fold7 and Z Flip7 take the 2025 crown.
Winner: Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold
The Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold may not be the first of its kind (that was the Huawei Mate XT Ultimate), but wider availability and lower price will most likely make this the best selling tri-foldable of 2025 (though with a December 12 launch, most of the sales will happen next year).
Samsung was also more conservative than Huawei when it comes to positioning the vulnerable folding display. We will see how prudent that was in the coming months.
The TriFold will not sell many units – it will be manufactured in limited quantities. But that is not what this is about. The TriFold launch was the first time this year that we felt that Samsung was innovating again.
Loser: Exynos
There is exactly one phone with the Exynos 2500 and that is the Galaxy Z Flip7. The Flip is certainly a winner, but we don’t think any of its success can be attributed to the chipset.
A delayed launch meant that the 2500 wasn’t ready in time for the S25 series. And the other two new models that use an Exynos 2000 chip this year, the Galaxy S25 FE and Z Flip7 FE, chose the older Exynos 2400.
Samsung Exynos 2500
Reports on the upcoming Exynos 2600 suggest a grim future for it. Apparently, only South Korean Galaxy S26 units will use the Exynos. This is partly due to a deal with Qualcomm that at least 75% of all S26 phones sold globally should have the Snapdragon chip. It’s not just that, though, yields are reportedly not good enough to support the global launch.
This is why the heading here is just “Exynos” and not “Exynos 2500”. Competition is good for the consumer, but the Samsung chipset has had more issues than successes in recent years, at least when it comes to the lucrative flagship segment. To be fair, the mid-range Exynos 1000 models did well in the Galaxy A phones (and their derivatives), but those models work with slimmer margins and no maker other than Samsung has adopted them.
Loser: Samsung Galaxy S25 FE
The Samsung Galaxy S25 FE was a pretty middling update – Samsung changed the chipset from an Exynos 2400e to an Exynos 2400. That brought a small performance bump but nothing that felt like a generational improvement.
The new 45W charge system for the bigger 4,900mAh battery (vs. 25W and 4,700mAh on the S24 FE) didn’t do much either. The phone beat its predecessor in a 30 minute charging sprint, reaching 63% compared to 56%. However, a full charge takes 1 hour and 10 minutes on both phones.
A price hike put the S25 FE price tag too close to that of the S25+, which made it a tough sell. It’s a shame, the S24 FE was quite good for 2024.
Loser: Samsung Galaxy Z Flip7 FE
We never saw a breakdown of Z Flip7 vs. Z Flip7 FE sales, but it’s plain to see that the cheaper FE model just isn’t all that popular. The outdated design and old chipset (Exynos 2400 as mentioned above, saddled with just 8GB of RAM) made this one a dud. We still like the idea of a cheap flip foldable – make that cheap foldable of any kind – but the Z Flip7 FE wasn’t it.
Winners: Samsung Galaxy A56 and A36
We don’t have concrete sales numbers, but the Galaxy A36 and Galaxy A56 were specifically called out in a Q2 report from IDC as key growth drivers for Samsung. The A56 also enjoys high interest on our site.
Samsung changed strategy this year and decided to launch the Galaxy A56 in the US – in previous years you had to choose between a Galaxy A3x and a Galaxy S FE with nothing in between them. However, it took until mid-July before the A56 actually became available. So, it wasn’t a perfect year, but it was certainly a good one (some bootloop issues also left a mark).
Losers: Samsung Galaxy Watches
First off, Samsung didn’t even have a new Galaxy Watch Ultra for this year, it just re-released the 2024 model with 64GB storage (up from 32GB) and a new color option.
Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra
The Ultra-inspired squircle shape for the Galaxy Watch8 and Galaxy Watch8 Classic was met with loud complaints. And that’s not all, the 46mm Classic has the same display size as the 40mm Watch8, both at 1.34”. And yes, the rotating bezel does take up some space, but the 46mm Watch6 Classic had a 1.5” display.
Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra
| 256GB 12GB RAM | € 890.00 |
£ 780.00 |
| 512GB 12GB RAM | € 990.00 |
£ 849.00 |
| Show all prices | ||
Samsung Galaxy S25
| 128GB 12GB RAM | € 597.45 |
£ 478.00 |
| 256GB 12GB RAM | € 649.00 |
£ 589.00 |
| Show all prices | ||
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold7
| 256GB 12GB RAM | € 1,293.18 |
£ 1,449.00 |
| 512GB 12GB RAM | € 1,141.76 |
£ 1,649.00 |
| Show all prices | ||
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip7
| 256GB 12GB RAM | € 855.00 |
£ 1,049.00 |
| 512GB 12GB RAM | € 886.07 |
£ 979.00 |
| Show all prices | ||
