Update: Huawei Mate X has been sold out within a couple of minutes. Next round of sale will commence on November 22nd.
Original story as follows…
After several rounds of delay, the highly anticipated Huawei Mate X foldable smartphone finally went on it’s debut sale in China today. The Mate X will arrive with a astronomical price of 16,999 yuan (US$2,403) in China, and will be available exclusively via Vmall.
It’s main competitor, the Samsung Galaxy Fold, had already went on sale on November 8th although it was quickly sold out in less than 5 minutes. Similarly, it’s subsequent sales during the November 11th event had also seen the device being snapped away quickly. This outlines the popularity of such foldable smartphones in the Chinese market despite the expensive price tag.
Although the Mate X had already been scheduled to go on sale in China today, but it’s international availability remains uncertain. Previously, a Huawei’s spokesman had told CNBC that a global launch plan is still currently under review.
One of the main reasons for Huawei’s hesitation to bring the Mate X to the global market is perhaps due to the omission of pre-installed Google Play apps and services on their latest smartphones as a result of the ongoing US Trade ban. With the omission of these crucial apps, it’s unlikely for consumers to fork out such a staggering sum of money for the device.
While some may argue that there are multiple workarounds to bring these apps to the device, but many are still unwilling to deploy these so-called workarounds due to the possible security risks.
