On Tuesday 10, September, Huawei Technologies has launched a new three-way foldable phone known as Mate XT. This is another attempt in the strategy that Huawei has been taking to consolidate its hold on the largest smartphone market within China. It happens at a time when Apple recently released a new model of its iPhone making the rivalry between the two companies even bigger.
Mate XT, a Z fold style handset was first unveiled at Huawei’s flagship e commerce sites in mainland China the previous day of its launch conference. The company has over 3,000 employees, from which 219 was fired to control the rising cost of production. 3 millions pre-orders for a new gadget, importantly no deposit necessary. This is especially so given that IDC estimated that the market for foldable phones globally was around four million units in the second quarter of this year.
This latest release is a reminder of Huawei’s constant endeavor to adapt to U. S. sanctions and continue to threaten Apple in the China market. The two-way foldable phones that the company currently offers have aided it already beat Samsung Electronics this year as the premier global seller of such gadgets.
But it appears that the high price of the new smartphones and their availability may limit the sales of Mate XT more that best flagship of the company’s product line. Another analyst from Counterpoint, Jene Park added, “The future Huawei products might not affect the volume business proportion of Samsung and Apple inevitably has a limit to the quantity of products it supplies but it might affect some Chinese markets sales.
Foldable Smartphone Market Growth
The foldable smartphone activities experienced a 57% growth in the second quarter of the year compared to the same period of the previous year with 3.9 million units shipped. This growth was however equally fueled mainly by the Chinese smartphone makers who were penetrating global markets. Despite this increase, foldable phones still represent only 1.3% of the overall smartphone market, which saw 292.2 million units shipped in the same period.
An IDC senior researcher Will Wong pointed out that the awareness of foldable phones among the consumers is still very limited. Another pressuring element still persists in high prices. Unfortunately, the price for the new Mate XT has not been announced yet, however, the previous year’s Mate X5 is available at over 10,000 yuan (S$1,834) in its domestic market, which is almost twice as that of the new iPhone 15.
Huawei’s dominance in the foldable market is evident, with a 27.5% market share in the second quarter, surpassing Samsung’s 16.4%. In China, Huawei holds a 42% market share, outpacing competitors like Vivo and Honor. In the broader Chinese smartphone market, Apple’s ranking fell from third to sixth place in the second quarter, as Huawei rose to become the third-largest vendor, bolstered by strong sales of its latest smartphones.
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