- Huawei has launched the world’s first trifold smartphone – Mate XT.
- The Mate XT leverages Huawei’s experience in making outward-folding and inward-folding foldables.
- The trifold phone boasts a flagship-level camera setup, including an adjustable aperture and periscope zoom.
- It also introduces luxury design elements, such as a handcrafted metal ring.
- Despite increased competition, Huawei retained 39% of China’s foldable sales in 2023.
- The Mate XT could influence two critical industry trends – China’s smartphone average selling price (ASP) and foldable market growth momentum.
Huawei has launched the world’s first trifold mobile phone. The product features two hinges – one inward-folding and one outward-folding – to achieve the trifold design. When fully unfolded, the screen measures 10.2 inches, making it the world’s largest smartphone, according to Huawei.
The hinge is often the first thing people notice in a foldable. Huawei, having pioneered both the world’s first outward-folding and inward-folding foldable devices, has extensive experience in hinge design. In this trifold model, the display’s durability has been further improved to meet the requirements of two hinges that fold in opposite directions. The Mate XT finds the perfect folding angles (which determine the thickness of the smartphone when folded) while enabling consistent movement of the two hinge structures.
Huawei believes that a larger display can further enhance the productivity potential of foldable smartphones. When fully unfolded, the smartphone’s display is like adding another bar-type smartphone screen to its short side, making the display area about one-third larger than a conventional book-type foldable. However, the readable area is claimed to be twice as large, thanks to a display ratio that is more suitable for showing rectangular media content, such as PowerPoint slides. This is what the Mate XT’s target customers value.
For the first time, Huawei has publicly confirmed that the Mate XT’s inner foldable display is covered by Ultra Thin Glass (UTG), widely used by most foldable flagship products, and a layer of non-Newtonian fluid to better protect the display.
The smartphone also has a flagship-level rear camera setup that features an adjustable aperture of f1.4-f4.0 for the main camera, the same as in the Pura 70 Pro. It includes a periscope camera with 5.5x optical zoom and optical image stabilization (OIS).
The Mate XT price starts at $2,809 (RMB 19,999), going up to $3,371 (RMB 23,999). To match this premium price, Huawei has infused luxury elements into the Mate XT’s design. For example, Huawei highlights that the metal ring around the rear camera, known in design terms as the “deco”, is handmade with over 20 days of effort, with each deco featuring a unique natural pattern.
Huawei ranks among China’s foldable market pioneers and leads this segment in the country currently. It has been a major driving force behind both the growth of foldable sales and the advancement of related technologies. Though Huawei’s leadership in foldable sales has somewhat weakened after the entry of more OEMs, it still accounted for 39% of China’s total foldable sales in 2023.
Launching a foldable device with such complexity levels could further consolidate Huawei’s leadership in technology. This trifold device has enabled it to accumulate valuable experience in developing a more complex foldable form factor. As foldable smartphones are becoming a mature product category with increasingly acceptable weight, thickness and reliability, it seems that now is an ideal time for Huawei to elevate its foldable designs to the next level.
The advent of Mate XT is a reference point for the smartphone industry’s two important questions. The first is the average selling price (ASP) of China’s market, which is one of the world’s biggest premium smartphone markets. If the product can gain some meaningful traction, it indicates China’s smartphone ASP still has a significant potential to rise as long as the device has truly groundbreaking innovative technology. The second is the foldable smartphones’ growth momentum, which needs something new to revive.
