A $2,800 smartphone from Huawei with a 10-inch folding screen has achieved nearly 5mn pre-orders during its launch week, as the Chinese technology giant takes on Apple in its home market with increasingly sophisticated devices.
The Shenzhen-based group debuted the Mate XT on Tuesday at an event held hours after its US rival unveiled the iPhone 16. Huawei’s handset is the first commercially available smartphone with a display that folds out into three segments.
Richard Yu, Huawei executive director, said the company had been “struggling for five years” to bring the trifold model into production. “We have overcome the technological constraints of the screen and hinge, resolved issues with its reliability and turned science fiction into a reality,” he said.