Honor and Xiaomi have long come up with three-leaf smartphones, but are in no hurry to release them yet

Last week, the Chinese company Huawei Technologies introduced the Mate XT, a tri-fold smartphone with a flexible display that can unfold into a tablet. Today the new product went on sale for about $2800. As research by the South China Morning Post has shown, Xiaomi and Honor have long had patents for devices of a similar layout, and therefore can develop them if necessary.

Image source: Huawei Technologies

Xiaomi patented a tri-fold smartphone with three cameras on the back side back in 2022, and this patent became available to the general public for study on September 3. Once founded on the basis of Huawei’s business in the smartphone segment, which was destroyed by US sanctions, the Honor company patented a trifold device back in 2021, as Chinese sources specify. He first appeared in public in April of this year. The patent application combines two hinges and a Z-fold design with a circular camera array on the back of the device.

IDC analysts predict that foldable smartphones with AI capabilities will drive demand in the Chinese market this year, with total shipments rising 3.1% to 279 million units. At an event in July this year, Honor management admitted that the company had patented smartphones with unusual form factors, including versions with three sections and those that literally roll up into a tube. At the same time, the moment for introducing these devices to the market will be carefully selected. This is not so much a question of technological capabilities as of business-impacting choices.

The Chinese brand Tecno, owned by the dynamically developing Transsion holding, also recently demonstrated in a video a conceptual model of the Phantom Ultimate 2 smartphone, which folds in a Z-shape and allows you to work with an effective 10-inch display diagonal when unfolded. High demand for the recently introduced new Huawei product against the backdrop of a shortage has already inflated prices on the secondary market three times from the recommended level, which has upset some fans of the brand. Huawei led the Chinese foldable smartphone market with a 56% share in the first half, according to Canalys. China remains the largest market for foldable smartphones; in the second quarter, the country accounted for half of global sales volumes, which grew year-on-year by 21% to 1.5 million units.