Samsung hired a real Tim Cook to mock Apple's first foldable iPhone
Samsung's latest Galaxy Fold 8 ad stars a real person named Tim Cook — just not that Tim Cook. Days after Apple unveiled the iPhone Duo, its first foldable, Samsung New Zealand recruited a local realtor who happens to share the name of Apple's recently retired CEO. The ad is a direct jab at Apple's foldable debut, and it landed fast.
The tagline is hard to argue with: "Tim Cook has an announcement. And for the first time, it's about Galaxy."
The joke, explained
The real Tim Cook stepped down as Apple CEO on September 1. The New Zealand Tim Cook — actual profession: property sales — appears in the ad to point out that Samsung has been making foldables since 2019, when the original Galaxy Fold launched. The pitch skips specs entirely and leans on experience: Apple is new to this form factor; Samsung is not.
It's a clean bit of marketing. Apple leadership had previously taken shots at competitors' foldables, describing the category's quality as lacking — which Samsung's ad implicitly answers without saying a word about it directly.
The bigger picture
Behind the cheeky campaign, Samsung is dealing with a genuine supply crunch. Demand for the Galaxy Z Fold 8 has been strong enough that Samsung had to raise production targets by 1 million units, bringing the total to around 3.8 million, per GSMArena. To meet that demand, the company diverted Display Driver IC (DDI) components — the chips that control screen output — from products planned for 2027, according to 9to5Google. Taiwan's UMC foundry, which makes those chips on a 22nm process, is running at its production limit.
The Galaxy Z Fold 8 starts at $1,899. The iPhone Duo opens at $1,999, with pre-orders from October 16 and shipping on October 23. Samsung's Ultra model sits at $2,099 — $100 above Apple's entry price — so the base Fold 8 is currently the cheaper option, if only just.
Counterpoint Research forecasts Apple will take 46% of North American foldable market share in 2026, pushing Samsung down from 51% to 29%. That shift explains why Samsung is running this kind of ad now, before iPhone Duo reviews are even in.
What to watch
The foldable market is still small but growing fast — analysts expect it to roughly double by 2028. Whether the iPhone Duo converts mainstream buyers or stays a niche product will determine how much pressure Samsung actually faces. For now, the Galaxy Fold 8 has the pre-order numbers and — thanks to a New Zealand realtor — the better punchline.
