Huawei and Xiaomi Just Outran Apple in the Foldable Race
Huawei's tri-fold Mate XT2 and Xiaomi's passport-style 18 Fold hit shelves before Apple's first foldable iPhone even surfaces. What Chinese manufacturers are doing next could redraw the smartphone supply chain.
The Foldable Clock Just Moved
Huawei and Xiaomi announced new foldable phones on the same day in early September, beating Apple to market by months. The timing was not accidental. It was a coordinated statement from two companies that have spent three years building the one product Apple has yet to ship.
The Huawei Mate XT2 — a tri-fold device that unfolds into a tablet-sized screen — went on sale September 12 after its pre-orders sold out on September 3. The Xiaomi 18 Fold, meanwhile, arrived with a passport-style hinge design that mirrors what industry insiders expect Apple to adopt for its first foldable iPhone. Both devices carry Chinese-made processors and memory chips that did not exist on the market two years ago.
This is not a story about catch-up. It is a story about a supply chain rewriting itself while Apple was still refining its prototype.
What the Mate XT2 Actually Is
The Mate XT2 is the second generation of Huawei’s tri-fold experiment, first launched in 2024. Fold it twice and you get a device that opens to roughly the size of an iPad Mini. Unfold it fully and it becomes a tablet you can actually use as one — not a phone that pretends to be a tablet when opened.
The hardware inside is where the real signal lives. Huawei built the Kirin 9050 Pro chip around what the company calls “tau rule” — a logic folding approach to semiconductor design that the firm developed as a workaround for U.S. export restrictions on advanced manufacturing equipment. That is a long way of saying: Huawei is producing a competitive flagship chip without TSMC’s newest nodes, and it is doing so using domestic design methodology rather than foreign process technology.
The pricing confirms Huawei’s confidence. 19,999 to 24,999 yuan — roughly $2,800 to $3,500 — is premium territory that competes directly with the top iPhone models. And it sold out on pre-order. Chinese consumers are not waiting for Apple to define the category.
Xiaomi’s Move, and the Design Convergence
Xiaomi’s 18 Fold took a different architectural path. Instead of a tri-fold, it uses a single-hinge passport layout — the kind of design analysts at Bloomberg, Counterpoint, and IDC have all predicted Apple will use for its first foldable iPhone.
The processor is Xiaomi’s own Xring O3 chip, and the memory comes from Changxin Memory Technologies (CXMT), a Chinese firm that has been quietly becoming the domestic alternative to Samsung’s LPDDR lineup. The 18 Fold’s combination of in-house silicon and domestically sourced memory marks a supply chain milestone: a Chinese foldable phone that does not rely on Samsung or SK Hynix for its core components.
The design similarity to Apple’s rumored foldable is striking, but it is not coincidence. It is convergence driven by engineering — the passport form factor is the most mechanically stable way to fold a large screen without creating a thick book when closed. Apple arrived at the same conclusion independently, which is what happens when multiple engineers solve the same problem.
Why This Matters Beyond China
The immediate implication is simple: Apple’s first foldable iPhone will no longer be the only credible foldable on the market when it launches. Huawei and Xiaomi have already shipped products at this tier. They have refined their hinges, their software adaptations, and their supply chains. Apple enters a category that is already crowded — and crowded with competitors who have deeper local policy support.
The deeper implication is structural. The global smartphone supply chain has long been organized around a single model: Apple designs, TSMC fabricates, Samsung and SK Hynix supply memory, and assembly happens primarily in China and Vietnam. Huawei and Xiaomi are building an alternative path. CXMT is scaling memory production. Huawei’s Kirin line is proving that design-level innovation can compensate for manufacturing constraints. Xiaomi’s Xring series is extending that logic across multiple product tiers.
This matters to everyone who sells to smartphone makers. If the dominant foldable players begin sourcing chips and memory from Chinese suppliers instead of Korean and Taiwanese ones, the revenue forecasts for Samsung SDI, SK Hynix, and even TSMC’s advanced packaging business change — sometimes dramatically.
What Happens Next
Apple’s foldable iPhone is expected in late 2026 or early 2027, according to multiple analyst estimates. By then, Huawei and Xiaomi will have refined two generations of foldable hardware, locked in software support cycles, and built retail and carrier relationships in markets where Apple is increasingly vulnerable to regulatory pressure.
The Mate XT2’s sell-out confirms that the Chinese market is ready for foldables at premium prices. Xiaomi’s passport design signals that the form factor Apple is pursuing is already validated by competition. The supply chain shift toward domestic Chinese components is not speculative — it is happening in the devices that launched this week.
Apple’s advantage remains brand loyalty, ecosystem lock-in, and access to the latest manufacturing processes. But in foldables specifically, that advantage has narrowed faster than most Western coverage has acknowledged. The race is no longer about who can build a working prototype. It is about who can ship a polished product at scale first — and that race has already started.
For the rest of the world, the lesson is straightforward: the companies that defined the smartphone era are being challenged not from above, but from beside. Huawei and Xiaomi are not imitating Apple. They are building parallel tracks, and the foldable market is where those tracks are most visible right now.