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Huawei has made headlines with its latest tri-fold smartphone, the Mate XT, which has garnered over 2.9 million pre-orders at the time of this report.
This surge in interest, as reported by CNBC yesterday, comes a few days after the Chinese phone maker unveiled the tri-fold phone in a teaser video and just ahead of Apple’s iPhone 16 launch, later today (September 9).
Records on the company’s online store show that the pre-order phase, which began on September 7, still has 10 days to go, after which the Mate XT will officially hit the market on September 20.
While Huawei has yet to set an official price tag for the device, it is expected to feature a unique double-hinged design that opens into a 10in screen.
Market research firm Canalys reports that Huawei currently holds the fourth-largest smartphone market share in China, having shipped 10.6 million devices in the second quarter of 2024. In contrast, Apple has fallen out of the top five smartphone vendors in the region for the first time, with local brands like Vivo, Xiaomi, Honor and Oppo dominating the market.
Despite the impressive pre-order figures, global availability of the Mate XT remains uncertain, particularly in key markets such as the US and UK largely due to ongoing restrictions and sanctions that have impacted Huawei’s international operations in recent years.
Huawei’s Mate XT Arrival Likely Not to Affect iPhone 16 Shipment Figures
While many Apple enthusiasts worry that the timing chosen by Huawei for the launch of its tri-fold smartphone could affect the sales figures of the iPhone 16 series, TF International Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo suggests otherwise.
In a tweet that points to his analysis on Medium, Kuo shared that there will be a slight upward adjustment in the shipment forecast for Apple’s iPhone 16 series, raising it from an estimated 87-88 million units to 88-89 million units for 2024.
This increase is primarily driven by higher demand for the standard iPhone 16 model, although it still falls short of the approximately 91 million units shipped for the iPhone 15 series in 2023.
