Cherry is finally back to releasing smartphones, and while they’re not going to be matching the frenetic pace of their releases during the heyday of local brands, the company has promised a more regular release schedule that was quite unlike what we saw in 2022. Now that Cherry is back to offering phones to the public again, we asked them what a lot of us in the tech industry were thinking: will Cherry ever start selling foldable?

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It sounds like a dumb question, but hear us out: Cherry was known for offering tremendous value for money, offering spec-rich phones for not a lot of money. It was the reason why they managed to top the sales charts in the Philippines back in 2018.

And with foldable dropping in price, it’s only natural to expect more budget-oriented brands to start thinking of exploring this particular segment to give customers something new aside from the same old smartphone fare.

“We’re looking into it, but right now hindi pa,” Lonson Alejandrino, AVP for product development told us during an interview with him. For a Cherry foldable to be able to be launched and sold in the Philippines, it would need to be sold under Php 20,000 to be viable.

“The technology in the factories, they already have that, but we feel it’s not the right timing yet,” he said, referring to their ODM partners in China. “But we do have plans, and it’s better when companies like TECNO start releasing more affordable foldables because that means prices for the parts that make a foldable will go down, which is advantageous for us in the long run,” he added.

So, no foldable for now, but Cherry will not hesitate to release one once the price is right. And we’re looking forward to it, as I’d imagine a sub-Php 20K foldable would be a real market disruptor if that ever comes to market.