China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為) yesterday unveiled the world’s first tri-foldable phone, as it seeks to expand its lead in the world’s biggest smartphone market and steal the spotlight from Apple Inc hours after it debuted a new iPhone.
The Chinese tech giant showed off its new Mate XT, which users can fold three ways like an accordion screen door, during a launch ceremony in Shenzhen.
The Mate XT comes in red and black and has a 10.2-inch display screen. At 3.6mm thick, it is the world’s slimmest foldable smartphone, Huawei said.
Photo: AFP
The company’s Web site showed that it has garnered more than 3 million pre-orders for its Z-shaped tri-fold phone. This underscores Huawei’s ability to navigate US sanctions and solidifies its position against Apple in China, where some consumers criticized the new iPhone 16 for its lack of artificial intelligence (AI) features in the country.
Both smartphones are due to go on sale on Friday next week, the companies said.
Huawei already has two-way foldable phones in its lineup, and their strong sales in China helped it overtake Samsung Electronics Co this year as the biggest vendor of such phones globally.
However, with a price tag that starts at 19,999 yuan (US$2,809) — more than twice the starting price of the comparable iPhone 16 Pro Max — and limited production, the tri-fold phone is likely to become more of a symbol of Huawei’s tech prowess than a major sales driver, analysts said.
“The upcoming Huawei products are not expected to significantly impact Samsung and Apple’s businesses in terms of product quantity,” Counterpoint Research senior analyst Jene Park said.
“There is a limit to the quantity of products supplied. However, there may be some impact on sales in certain Chinese markets,” Park added.
Foldable smartphones account for just 1.3 percent of the broader smartphone market, and Huawei ranked as the world’s biggest foldable smartphone seller in the second quarter with a 27.5 percent market share, ahead of Samsung, with 16.4 percent, according to International Data Corp.
While Apple for years enjoyed strong demand in China, where new iPhone launches once sparked a frenzy, its sales have dwindled and the company’s ranking in China has now dropped from third to sixth place.
Apple and technology companies around the world are racing to add AI to products, and phones are expected to be among the most important battlegrounds.
The Cupertino, California-based company also is betting the AI feature would drive consumers to upgrade amid a slowdown in iPhone sales, which account for more than half of its total sales.
Apple Intelligence, the company’s AI software, will be used to improve its Siri personal assistant, as well as enhancing features such as understanding and identifying objects captured by the phone camera, the company said.
A test version of Apple Intelligence will be available in English as spoken in the US next month. It will be available for other localized versions of English in December, with versions in languages including Chinese, French, Japanese and Spanish next year.
The iPhone 16 and 16 Plus will use the new A18 chip and have an aluminum back, as well as a new customizable button that can be used for camera controls. The iPhone 16 will start at US$799 and the iPhone 16 Plus will start at US$899.
Apple also unveiled iPhone 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max, titanium models with a faster chip, the A18 Pro, and more AI capability, such as offering suggestions on how to set up a photo shoot more effectively. The iPhone 16 Pro will start at US$999 and the 16 Pro Max starts at US$1,199.
The company also introduced new Watches and AirPods with health-focused capabilities, as well as improvements in hardware design.
WEAKER ACTIVITY: The sharpest deterioration was seen in the electronics and optical components sector, with the production index falling 13.2 points to 44.5 Taiwan’s manufacturing sector last month contracted for a second consecutive month, with the purchasing managers’ index (PMI) slipping to 48, reflecting ongoing caution over trade uncertainties, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The decline reflects growing caution among companies amid uncertainty surrounding US tariffs, semiconductor duties and automotive import levies, and it is also likely linked to fading front-loading activity, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said. “Some clients have started shifting orders to Southeast Asian countries where tariff regimes are already clear,” Lien told a news conference. Firms across the supply chain are also lowering stock levels to mitigate
Six Taiwanese companies, including contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), made the 2025 Fortune Global 500 list of the world’s largest firms by revenue. In a report published by New York-based Fortune magazine on Tuesday, Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), ranked highest among Taiwanese firms, placing 28th with revenue of US$213.69 billion. Up 60 spots from last year, TSMC rose to No. 126 with US$90.16 billion in revenue, followed by Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) at 348th, Pegatron Corp (和碩) at 461st, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) at 494th and Wistron Corp (緯創) at
NEGOTIATIONS: Semiconductors play an outsized role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development and are a major driver of the Taiwan-US trade imbalance With US President Donald Trump threatening to impose tariffs on semiconductors, Taiwan is expected to face a significant challenge, as information and communications technology (ICT) products account for more than 70 percent of its exports to the US, Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said on Friday. Compared with other countries, semiconductors play a disproportionately large role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development, Lien said. As the sixth-largest contributor to the US trade deficit, Taiwan recorded a US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US last year — up from US$47.8 billion in 2023 — driven by strong
ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip assembly and testing service provider, yesterday said it would boost equipment capital expenditure by up to 16 percent for this year to cope with strong customer demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications. Aside from AI, a growing demand for semiconductors used in the automotive and industrial sectors is to drive ASE’s capacity next year, the Kaohsiung-based company said. “We do see the disparity between AI and other general sectors, and that pretty much aligns the scenario in the first half of this year,” ASE chief operating officer Tien Wu (吳田玉) told an
RSS