Samsung will unveil a thinner version of its flagship foldable smartphone at a launch likely set to take place next month, as it battles Chinese rivals to deliver the slimmest devices to the market.

Folding phones, which have a single screen that can fold in half, came in focus when Samsung first launched such a device in 2019. But Chinese players, in particular Honor and Oppo, have since aggressively released foldables that are thinner and lighter than Samsung’s offerings.

Why are slim foldables important?

“With foldables, thinness has become more critical than ever because people aren’t prepared to accept the compromise for a thicker and heavier phone to get the real estate that a folding phone can deliver,” Ben Wood, chief analyst at CCS Insight, told CNBC on Thursday.

Honor, Oppo and other Chinese players have used their slim designs to differentiate themselves from Samsung.

Let’s look at a comparison: Samsung’s last foldable from 2024, the Galaxy Z Fold6, is 12.1 millimeter ~(0.48 inches) thick when folded and weighs 239 grams (8.43 oz). Oppo’s Find N5, which was released earlier this year, is 8.93 millimeters thick when closed and weighs 229 grams. The Honor Magic V3, which was launched last year, is 9.2 millimeters when folded and weighs 226 grams.

“Samsung needs to step up” in foldables, Wood said.

And that’s what the South Korean tech giant is planning to do at its upcoming launch, which is likely to take place next month.

“The newest Galaxy Z series is the thinnest, lightest and most advanced foldable yet – meticulously crafted and built to last,” Samsung said in a preview blog post about the phone earlier this month.

But the competition is not letting up. Honor is planning a launch on July 2 in China for its latest folding phone, the Magic V5.

“The interesting thing for Samsung, if they can approach the thinness that Honor has achieved it is will be a significant step up from predecessor, it will be a tangible step up in design,” Wood said.

Despite these advances by way of foldables, the market for the devices has not been as exciting as many had hoped.

CCS Insight said that foldables will account for just 2% of the overall smartphone market this year. Thinner phones may be one way to address the sluggish market, but consumer preferences would also need to change.

“There is a chance that by delivering much thinner foldables that are more akin to the traditional monoblock phone, it will provide an opportunity to turn consumer heads and get them to revisit the idea of having a folding device,” Wood said.

“However, I would caution foldables do remain problematic because in many cases consumers struggle to see why they need a folding device.”

Although the market remains small for foldables compared to traditional smartphones, noted analyst Ming-Chi Kuo of TF International Securities on Wednesday said Apple  — which has been notably absent from this product line-up — plans to make a folding iPhone starting next year.

Google suffered a setback Thursday after an advisor to the European Union’s top court recommended it dismiss the tech giant’s appeal against a record 4.1-billion-euro ($4.7 billion) antitrust fine.

Juliane Kokott, advocate general at the European Court of Justice, advised the court to throw out Google’s appeal and confirm the fine, which was reduced in 2022 to 4.125 billion euros from 4.34 billion euros previously by the EU’s General Court.

“In her Opinion delivered today, Advocate General Kokott proposes that the Court of Justice dismiss Google’s appeal and, therefore, uphold the judgment of the General Court,” the Luxembourg-based ECJ said in a press release Thursday.

The fine relates to a long-running antitrust case surrounding Google’s Android operating system.

In 2018, the European Commission slapped Google with the record-breaking penalty on the grounds that it abused Android’s mobile dominance to give unfair advantage to its own apps via pre-installation deals with smartphone makers. The Commission is the executive body of the EU.

Google said it was “disappointed” with the ECJ advocate general’s verdict, adding it “would discourage investment in open platforms and harm Android users, partners and app developers.”

“Android has created more choice for everyone and supports thousands of successful businesses in Europe and around the world,” a spokesperson for the company told CNBC via email.

Though the advocate general’s proposal is non-binding, judges tend to follow four out of five such non-binding opinions. The ECJ is expected to deliver a final ruling in the coming months.

A SpaceX Starship rocket on Wednesday exploded at the Starbase facility in Texas during routine testing in preparation for a launch flight, according to local authorities and live stream footage.

The rocket “experienced a major anomaly while on a test stand at Starbase” at 11 p.m. local time, SpaceX said on social media, noting “a safety clear area around the site was maintained throughout the operation and all personnel are safe and accounted for.”

Local authorities said that Starship “suffered a catastrophic failure and exploded,” with no injuries reported at the time of writing and an investigation is now underway. Live stream footage of Starbase showed the rocket burst into flame, shooting a large fireball into the sky.

Another Starship launch was expected to take place by the end of this month.

It’s been a tempestuous ride for Elon Musk’s mammoth Starship, after three flight launch attempts devolved in fiery glory and air-traffic stopping debris this year to date. Notably, the rocket model has taken off successfully in previous instances, but its vast scale — standing 120 meters (394 feet) tall when factoring in the Super Heavy booster — has raised concerns over its overall reliability and requirements for orbital refueling once in flight.

Yet Musk has clinched his hopes on Starship as the key vehicle for both NASA’s third and fourth Artemis missions — part of a broader plan to return humans to the Moon — due to take place over 2027-2028. The rocket is also set to play a role in launching the Starlab private space station in the transition to commercial space orbiting labs once the International Space Station retires after 2030.

Critically, Starship is also central to Musk’s — and former ally U.S. President Donald Trump’s — broader ambitions to colonize Mars. The rocket is set to ferry Optimus robots to the red planet by the end of 2026, with Musk in March saying, “If those landings go well, then human landings may start as soon as 2029, although 2031 is more likely.”

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