Huawei's triple-fold screen phone sold out, skyrocketing to a sky-high price of 90,000

Author | Huang Yu

Editor | Liu Baodan

Unsold before it was hot, once speculated to 80,000 yuan in the second-hand market, the world's first officially launched tri-fold screen smartphone went on sale at 10:08 on September 20.

According to Wall Street News, once launched, all versions of Huawei Mate XT Pro on Huawei Mall were sold out, currently showing out of stock. The same situation is seen on JD.com and the official flagship store on Taobao.

Several consumers who were waiting to buy on Huawei Mall told Wall Street News that it was really difficult to buy, even if they waited, they couldn't get it.

This product that sold out within seconds of its release is not cheap. The 256GB version is priced at 19,999 yuan, the 512GB version at 21,999 yuan, and the 1TB version at 23,999 yuan, making it the most expensive smartphone in Huawei's history.

Currently, on Taobao, several distributors are selling at a premium of over 20,000 yuan, with the 1TB version priced at 47,999 yuan. The prices on platforms like Xianyu for second-hand transactions are also high, mostly around 50,000 yuan, with some even reaching 90,000 yuan.

A seller on Xianyu claimed that there is a shortage in the market everywhere now, and the market situation may vary daily.

Such a hot scene was already anticipated in the market. According to data from the official Huawei Mall website, as of September 19, the number of reservations for Huawei Mate XT had exceeded 6.85 million.

Under the hot sales, Huawei has already prepared to increase the shipment volume of Huawei Mate XT.

Tianfeng International Securities analyst Guo Mingchi released a report yesterday stating that the latest supply chain survey indicates that the shipment forecast for Huawei's tri-fold screen smartphone Mate XT in 2024 has been raised from 500,000 units to 1 million units.

For a foldable screen smartphone, especially the world's first tri-fold screen smartphone, 1 million units is not a small number. It is worth noting that according to CINNO Research data, in the first half of 2024, the cumulative sales of foldable screen smartphones in China only reached 4.98 million units.

In this context, even for Huawei, which already dominates the foldable screen smartphone market, selling 1 million units of a high-priced phone is not an easy task.

Furthermore, Guo Mingchi pointed out that the market's estimate for the global shipment of foldable screen smartphones in 2024 has been revised down from 30 million units to 15 million units, mainly due to the difficulty of software design to adapt to current large screens, low profit margins, and poor durability of foldable screens.

Therefore, Guo Mingchi also warned that despite the expected increase in Mate XT's shipment volume, attention should still be paid to whether the demand for Huawei Mate X can be sustained after its launch. He pointed out that currently, no other Android brand plans to follow Huawei in launching a tri-fold screen smartphone, with the biggest concern being durability.

Guo Mingchi further analyzed that the main reason why Huawei chose to adopt the tri-fold appearance ahead of its competitors ultimately lies in the relatively inferior performance of its processors, so its options for differentiation strategies are limited Unlike Apple, which has not yet entered the foldable phone market, Huawei attaches great importance to foldable phones. Since the second half of last year, Huawei has successively released three different product lines of foldable phones: Mate X5, Pocket2, and nova Flip.

For Huawei, while consolidating its advantage in the high-end market, foldable phones are an important driver for it to regain lost market share