Galaxy Fold, the much-expected foldable phone from Samsung, seems to be facing lackluster demand in China.
The device, priced at 15,999 yuan ($2,290) became available to customers in China at 10 am Saturday local time. cnTechPost was preparing a story for its potential quick sales, but as of 10:20 am it is still available and we can still place an order for it.
This is in sharp contrast with the performance of the device’s previous round of sales in China that saw it sell out in five minutes and also pales when compared with Huawei’s Mate X which was sold out in the first minute.
The Galaxy Fold comes in two colors -- black and silver, with both having 12GB of RAM and 512 GB of storage. However, despite it’s one of the most cutting-edge consumer electronic devices in the world, the current model on sale does not support 5G.
The Galaxy Fold Samsung currently is selling only has LTE variant, with the 5G variant to arrive sometime later this month. According to previous media reports, the 5G model is expected to be exclusive to China Telecom and launch on its network as the W20 5G.
Samsung said on a Weibo post Saturday the W20 5G will be unveiled on November 19 in Wuhan, a city in central China's Hubei province.
It also said the device will only support NSA 5G networks of China Telecom and China Unicom, which means China's largest telecom operator China Mobile was not supported by the device.
A lack of 5G support seems like a pity for the Galaxy Fold as 5G commercial services are now available in a total of 50 Chinse cities and there are dozens of regular phones that support the ultra-fast network.
While comparing with its main competitor, the Mate X from Huawei, the lack of 5G support becomes a bigger issue.
Huawei has also been making its first foldable phone available to customers in China. But unlike Samsung, the Mate X supports 5G despite the price is 100 yuan higher than the Galaxy Fold.
The Mate X became available at 10:08 am Beijing time November 15 at Huawei’s online store and it was sold out in the first minute. You can check the report here.
