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Samsung launched the Galaxy Z Fold6 at its Galaxy Unpacked event in Paris. The tech giant said the foldable device is thinner and lighter than its predecessor.

Arjun Kharpal | CNBC

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.

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Figma’s stock sinks more than 20% after last week’s IPO pop

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Figma's stock sinks more than 20% after last week's IPO pop

Dylan Field, co-founder and CEO of Figma, appears on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on July 31, 2025.

Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Figma shares dropped 23% on Monday, cutting into the gains the design software company posted after hitting the market last week.

The stock dropped $27.50 to $94.50 as of midday. That’s down from a close of $122 on Friday.

Figma and top stockholders sold about 37 million shares at $33 per share late Wednesday, yielding around $412 million in proceeds flowing to the company. On Thursday, its first day of trading on the New York Stock Exchange, the stock more than tripled.

The initial reception shows a renewed appetite on Wall Street for high-growth technology companies after a historically slow stretch for initial public offerings.

Figma said in an updated IPO prospectus that it expects second-quarter revenue to increase about 40% from a year earlier. But unlike many technology companies that have gone public over the past several years, Figma has regularly posted profits.

Figma’s fully diluted valuation sits at approximately $56 billion, almost triple the amount Adobe agreed to pay in its 2022 acquisition offer. Regulators in the European Union and the U.K. opposed the deal, which the two companies called off in late 2023.

Dylan Field, Figma’s 33-year-old CEO, owns stock in the company worth more than $5 billion even after Monday’s slide.

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Amazon lays off over 100 employees in Wondery unit as part of audio business restructuring

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Amazon lays off over 100 employees in Wondery unit as part of audio business restructuring

The logo for Wondery is displayed on a smartphone in an arranged photograph taken in the Brooklyn borough of New York, U.S., on Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2020.

Gabby Jones | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Amazon is laying off roughly 110 employees in its Wondery podcast division and the head of the group is leaving as part of a broader reshuffling of the company’s audio unit.

In a Monday note to staffers, Steve Boom, Amazon’s vice president of audio, Twitch and games, said the company is consolidating some Wondery units under its Audible audiobook and podcasting division. Wondery CEO Jen Sargent is also stepping down from her role, Boom said.

“These changes will not only better align our teams as they work to take advantage of the strategic opportunities ahead but, even more crucially, will ensure we have the right structure in place to deliver the very best experience to creators, customers and advertisers,” Boom wrote in the memo, which was viewed by CNBC. “Unfortunately, these changes also include some role reductions, and we have notified those employees this morning.”

Bloomberg was first to report on the job cuts.

The move comes nearly five years after Amazon acquired Wondery as part of a push to expand its catalog of original audio content. The podcasting company made a name for itself with hit shows like “Dirty John” and “Dr. Death.”

More recently, Wondery signed several lucrative licensing deals with Jason and Travis Kelce’s “New Heights” podcast, along with Dax Shepard’s “Armchair Expert.”

Amazon is streamlining “how Wondery further integrates” into the company by separating the teams that oversee its narrative podcasts from those developing “creator-led shows,” Boom wrote.

The narrative podcasting unit will consolidate under Audible, and creator-led content will move to a new unit within Boom’s organization in Amazon called “creator services,” he wrote.

Amazon’s audio pursuits face a heightened challenge from the growing popularity of video podcasts on Alphabet‘s YouTube, which now hosts an increasing number of shows.

Video shows require different discovery, growth and monetization strategies than “audio-first, narrative series,” Boom wrote in the memo to Amazon staffers.

“The podcast landscape has evolved significantly over the past few years,” Boom said.

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Baidu plans to expand its robotaxis to Europe with Lyft deal

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Baidu plans to expand its robotaxis to Europe with Lyft deal

Cheng Xin | Getty Images

Baidu will bring its driverless taxis to Europe next year via a partnership with U.S. ridehailing firm Lyft, as the Chinese tech giant looks to expand its autonomous vehicles globally.

The robotaxis will initially be deployed in the U.K. and Germany from 2026 with the aim to have “thousands” of vehicles across Europe in the “following years,” the two companies said.

Lyft has had very little presence in Europe until last week when it closed the acquisition of Germany-based ride hailing company FreeNow, which is available in over 150 cities across nine countries, including Ireland, the U.K., Germany and France.

Deployment of the autonomous cars is “pending regulatory approval,” Lyft and Baidu said in a Monday statement. It’s unclear if Lyft will offer Baidu’s robotaxis via the FreeNow app or another product.

The partnership marks a continued push from Baidu to expand its robotaxis to international markets.

Last month, Baidu partnered with Uber to deploy its autonomous cars on the ride-hailing giant’s platform outside the U.S. and mainland China, with a focus on the Middle East and Asia, which will launch later this year. The partnership also covers Europe, though a launch date for the region has not yet been disclosed.

In China, Baidu has been operating its own robotaxi service since 2021 in major cities like Beijing, allowing users to hail an Apollo Go car through the app. Meanwhile, for Lyft, the deal could boost the firm’s presence in the region as it looks to take on rivals like Uber and Bolt.

Autonomous vehicles have become a big focus for ride-hailing companies which have looked to partner with companies that are developing the technology for driverless cars.

In the U.K., a market that Lyft is targeting, Uber this year partnered with self-driving car technology firm Wayve to launch trials of fully autonomous rides starting in spring 2026.

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