Huawei is reportedly working on a tri-fold phone. The company's chairman, Richard Yu, was spotted with the device, giving further credence to the idea that it's coming. However, it seems the company is having difficulty getting it down to a reasonable price.
The latest rumor from jasonwill101 on X suggests that Huawei's tri-folding phone prototype costs 35,000 RMB. That's around $4,900, almost three times as much as the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6's $1,799 price tag.
Currently, the cost of Huawei's tri-fold engineering prototype is over 35,000 RMB, and the company is continuously working on reducing costs. The anticipated retail price for the mass-produced model is set at 29,000 RMB($4000) pic.twitter.com/2JBvtx9IINAugust 13, 2024
Thankfully, the final retail release is expected to go down a bit to 29,000 RMB, around $4,000. Still, that's more than double the price of split-folding phones like Samsung's offering and the newly-announced Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold.
As prototype devices tend to have earlier hardware that's harder to source, it makes sense for the initial version to cost more. However, many people struggle to afford the cheaper foldable phones that are already on the market. With analysts saying the demand for foldables is decreasing, it's hard to say whether there's room for a $4,000 phone to hit the market, no matter how cool the gimmick is.
Perhaps Huawei doesn't have plans to draw mainstream appeal with this phone; instead, it aims to appeal to the same types of shoppers who get expensive Supreme clothes with limited drops (as a Scotty Cameron golf collector, I might be in that target market, too).
As noted by Phone Arena, the high price might come down to requirements for a new hinge design, supply chain issues (there aren't a lot of companies ordering tri-fold screens), or the slow production of the company's Kirin chips.
The rumor mill suggests that Huawei plans to release this phone in 2024, so we might not have to wait too long to find out the final price and what this interesting new foldable could bring to the table.
