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Only Xiaomi undercuts the folding iPhone's reported price; Huawei's trifold sits well above it, and because Huawei ships without Google services the whole contest is priced in yuan inside one market.
The Investor · Invest desk
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The ladder Apple is about to step onto already has two rungs occupied, and they sit on opposite sides of it: Huawei's Mate XT2 opens at 19,999 yuan [3], Xiaomi's 18 Fold at about 8,999 yuan [5], a spread of 2.2 times between two phones launched hours apart [21], with Apple's reported floor of more than $2,000 [6] landing in the gap.
Cryptopolitan's summary says both Chinese phones undercut Apple's expected price [7], and then its own copy prices the Mate XT2 near 20,000 yuan, about $2,750 [4], while the South China Morning Post puts the same phone at US$2,980 [3]; on either conversion Huawei is charging $750 to $980 more than Apple's reported floor, not less [22]. (The two dollar figures imply 7.27 and 6.71 yuan to the dollar [25], which is one reason to keep this argument in yuan.) So Apple arrives as a price-taker against Xiaomi, whose foldable costs less than half what Apple is expected to charge [6], and as the cheaper option against Huawei, which held 68% of Chinese foldable shipments last quarter according to Smart Analytics Global [16] and 23% of all Chinese smartphone shipments against Apple's 18% [15], a five-point lead assembled out of a five-point gain in a year [26].
What the reported specification tells you is where Apple spent the money: a 7.8-inch inner display, a 5.3-inch cover screen, no telephoto lens, and Touch ID moved into the power button in place of Face ID [13]. Huawei's device folds twice to 10.2 inches, carries roughly a 6,000mAh battery and a redesigned hinge aimed at the crease [8], and runs a Kirin 9050 Pro that Richard Yu Chengdong, chairman of Huawei's consumer business group, called the most powerful Kirin ever and credited with 42% more performance than last year's Mate XTs [11][12]. Huawei told Nikkei the chip is free of US supply restrictions [10]; it is the company's first flagship silicon in the six years since the Mate 40 series, and the export controls were written to stop it being made at all [9].
The counter-thesis is Citi's, and it is a unit number: about 7.3 million iPhone Ultras by the first quarter of 2027 [14], which at the reported $2,000 floor is roughly $14.6bn of revenue [23] from a line that did not exist. The category is compounding faster than Apple's share of it, with Counterpoint Research putting global foldable shipments up 18% last year and projecting 24% this year and 37% in 2027 [18], multiplying to about twice the base across the three years [24], so Apple can lose the price argument in China and still add units. And the argument is confined to China, because Huawei ships without Google services and so does not reach Europe or the United States in volume [17].
Apple's record of arriving late and polished (large-screen phones, 5G, stylus support [19]) was built in categories where it could match a rival's price and win on the object. This one is seven years old [20], and the two prices that define it in China were set on Monday by companies designing their own chips [1]. The evidence stops short of Apple's side of the ledger: nothing here gives its price, its name beyond an expectation, or a confirmed part list [6][28]. If Apple's China price prints above 19,999 yuan, the price-taker reading is wrong and Huawei's trifold becomes the value option in its own market.
Ranked by verification strength, evidence, and original report placement.
Huawei and Xiaomi both launched premium foldable phones in China on Monday, two days before Apple's September 9 event, where a first folding iPhone is expected.
Huawei unveiled the Mate XT2 in China on Monday, with sales set to begin September 10.
The Mate XT 2 starts at 19,999 yuan (US$2,980), and is powered by the Kirin 9050 Pro, a processor based on Huawei's proprietary Tau Scaling Law.
The Mate XT2 has an expected price close to 20,000 yuan, or about $2,750.
The Kirin 9050 Pro marks the return of a Huawei flagship chip six years after the Mate 40 series, and Washington's export controls were meant to stop the company from producing the chip totally.
Huawei says the chips powering the Mate XT2 are free from U.S. supply restrictions.
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Firm on the launch, single-sourced on the contest
Monday's Guangzhou event, the 19,999-yuan starting price and the Kirin 9050 Pro hold up across South China Morning Post and, in outline, Nikkei Asia. Everything that turns this into a three-way comparison sits with Cryptopolitan alone and mostly unattributed: Apple's $2,000-plus floor, the folding iPhone's display sizes, Huawei's 23 per cent Chinese share. The apparent breadth also flatters the record, since two of the four items in our coverage are the same South China Morning Post report posted twice.
Two phones announced, one dated for sale
These are real shipping events rather than previews: Huawei opens sales on 10 September, Xiaomi's 18 Fold is priced and specified, and HarmonyOS 7 started reaching installed handsets the same day. What is missing is any demand signal on the new hardware. The only usage number in our coverage, Huawei's 68 per cent of Chinese foldable shipments, measures the quarter before these devices existed, and no source reports units, pre-orders or availability outside China.
The comparison overreaches at the top
Cryptopolitan's summary line has both Chinese phones undercutting Apple, while its own body puts the Mate XT2 at roughly $2,750 against Apple's reported $2,000 floor, and South China Morning Post's US$2,980 conversion pushes it further above. Huawei's side of the story runs on a launch-stage superlative and a 42 per cent gain with no test behind it. Against that, the export-control substance is stated plainly rather than inflated, and Nikkei Asia's careful wording keeps the chip claim where it belongs.
Everyone is playing to Apple's keynote
Huawei and Xiaomi chose the 48 hours before Apple's event to launch, which is a positioning decision as much as a product one, and Richard Yu's 'most powerful Kirin ever' is sales language delivered at a sales event. The restriction-free chip claim is Huawei's own, relayed as such. Counterpoint and Citi both gain visibility from being quoted on a category they forecast, Smart Analytics Global likewise, and Cryptopolitan is a crypto news site aggregating a phone launch for traffic, closing the piece with a newsletter pitch.
Solid facts, borrowed comparisons
We can be confident about what Huawei showed, when it goes on sale and what software it runs, because two publishers reported it independently on the day. Confidence drops sharply on the comparative frame, which depends on an unattributed Apple price, unattributed Chinese share figures and a single sell-side unit forecast. Apple's own event on 9 September will settle the price question one way or the other within days.
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1 article · September 7, 2026
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