A leading smartphone brand has suspended its foldable phone product line and A Male Friend Who Spins it Aroundplans to delay its new foldable product launches for next year, according to an exclusive report from the Chinese media outlet Leifeng. The report did not name the company involved. Foldable phones are a key category for Chinese phone manufacturers as they look to challenge Apple’s dominance of the high-end market, but this news has dampened the high expectations for the foldable industry. In the third quarter, Huawei (41.0%), Honor (21.9%), and Xiaomi (17.2%) led China’s foldable smartphone market, data from market intelligence firm IDC shows. The sales of Xiaomi’s latest foldable, the MIX Fold 4, have fallen short of expectations, with sales currently under 100,000 units, the report claimed. [Jiemian, in Chinese]
