Foldable Mate X 5G is worth the €2,299 price tag: Huawei mobile head
The Huawei Mate X folding smartphone was launched at MWC
Although Huawei's newly released Mate X 5G foldable phone will cost €2,299, or $2,600 per unit, Huawei's mobile segment chief Richard Yu believes the innovative design is worth every penny spent by consumers.
MWC 2022
"Although the initial cost [of Huawei Mate X] is really high, the value of the consumer experience is equivalently as high. It is worth the money," Yu said, according to a NetEase report on Monday.
The Chinese smartphone maker officially launched its foldable smartphone, the Huawei Mate X, at this year's Mobile World Congress on Sunday. The unveiling had followed its major competitor, Samsung, unveiling the Galaxy Fold a week earlier, which will come at a slightly cheaper price point of $1,980 per unit.
Yu said Huawei's R&D partners had devoted a lot of energy into its foldable product, and the effort "all seems to be worth it now" as he considers Huawei's Mate X to be "the biggest innovation in smartphones over the past decade, and will lead to the rewriting of product definitions in this era".
As the new phone prepares to be sent to telecom operators for product testing, Yu said during the product launch, that it would not be officially delivered to consumers until the middle of 2019.
Responding to concerns over the foldable phone's battery life and software adaptation issues for folding screens, Yu said the major technical obstacles have already been overcome.
"After mass production, the cost is expected to drop significantly," Yu added, according to the NetEase.
But the new Huawei phone could face availability and production constraints for now as He Gang, head of Huawei's smartphone division, said he anticipates the output of the Mate X phones will be around 100,000 units per month, according to separate NetEase report.
Huawei is not the first Chinese smartphone maker to unleash a foldable phone. In late October, 2018, Chinese startup Royole, specialised in making bendable displays, launched its 7.8-inch foldable FlexPai phone-tablet in Beijing, and was sold at prices starting from $1,300.
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