Huawei will launch its first foldable phone, the Mate X, as soon as the end of this month and mass production has already began, TMTPost reported Sunday citing supply chain sources.
Because of the difficulty of producing the foldable screens, the supply of the device will be small, the report added.
In the meantime, a user on Douyin, known as TikTok in international markets, posted an unboxing video of the Mate X recently.
Here are some screenshots:
Huawei first introduced the Mate X earlier this year at Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2019 at €2,299 ($2600).
It delayed the device’s launch to optimize its software system to deliver a unique experience using a foldable screen. The company affirmed that it will be responsible for every device it has ever launched and wants to avoid display issues experienced by its competitors.
“As a new breed of smartphones, Huawei Mate X combines 5G, foldable screen, AI and an all-new mode of interfacing to provide consumers with an unprecedented user experience. The Huawei Mate X will be the first key for consumers to open the door to 5G smart living,” said Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei’s Consumer Business Group said at the launch of the device.
Huawei said the Mate X is the “world’s fastest foldable 5G smartphone”, and that its position as a manufacturer of 5G network infrastructure has given it a unique advantage because the company was able to test the phone on internal 5G networks before release.
This sounds the case because according to the above report supply chains sources said there were two main reasons hindering the rolling out of the device.
First, Huawei has reset the device’s durability and taken a long time testing it to ensure there won’t be flaws after hitting the market. Second, the optimization of the operating system also took some time.