Overview
- Huawei on Monday unveiled the Mate XT2 tri‑fold in Guangzhou, equipped with the Kirin 9050 Pro, priced from ¥19,999 and scheduled to go on sale in China from September 12, with the company claiming roughly a 42% performance gain over its prior model.
- Xiaomi announced the Xiaomi 18 Fold the same day, publishing full specs and tiered pricing that start at ¥10,999 for the base configuration and confirming the device uses the company’s in‑house Xring O3 chip and domestic components.
- Both companies stressed in‑house silicon as a strategic response to U.S. export limits on advanced semiconductor tools, with Huawei describing its Tau Scaling Law and LogicFolding approach to stack logic vertically and Xiaomi promoting a 3nm Xring O3 design.
- The products aim to push premium sales as the wider smartphone market contracts and component costs rise, with Huawei already dominant in China foldable shipments at about 68% in Q2 2026 and new features such as Huawei’s optional hardware privacy display targeting high‑end buyers.
- Industry attention now shifts to Apple’s early‑September event, where a foldable iPhone is widely expected, and to whether Huawei and Xiaomi will sell these new foldables outside China and how competition changes prices and supply choices for consumers.