Dubai, UAE, 29 November 2024 – Few tech brands are as resilient as Huawei. Renowned for its relentless innovation and cutting-edge designs, the company has established itself as a dominant force in the foldable smartphone market. While the broader smartphone sector appears to have reached a plateau, Huawei has made remarkable progress within the foldable smartphone niche. According to a report by Counterpoint Research, in the first quarter of 2024, Huawei’s global shipments of foldable smartphones surged by 257% year-on-year, and its market share reached an impressive 35%. Today, it ranks among the top three brands in the global foldable market. With this success, Huawei is reshaping the future of foldable technology.
A 5-Year Innovation Journey Powered by Foresight
Huawei’s rise in the foldable market has not been an overnight phenomenon. In fact, Huawei was the first to predict that foldable screens would become a mainstream trend in the development of future smartphones. As early as nine years ago, Huawei BG CTO Li Xiaolong (Bruce Lee) introduced the concept of a three-fold smartphone, which would take years to bring to fruition.
Huawei took the lead in 2019 with the release of the HUAWEI Mate X at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, introducing an entirely new design in the smartphone market. Five years later, Huawei is considered an industry disruptor with the recent launch of the HUAWEI Mate XT in China.
To achieve such significant progress within just five years, Huawei combined a driven spirit with its innovative culture, carefully refining each innovation and transforming each vision into a practical reality.
Huawei allocates over 10% of its annual sales revenue to R&D. Over the past decade, the company’s total investment in R&D has surpassed CNY 1.11 trillion, with more than CNY 100 billion dedicated to product and technology development each year. According to the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Huawei ranks as the world’s 8th most innovative company and is positioned 5th in the 2023 EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard.
This approach has undoubtedly yielded success with every generation of Huawei foldables, each marking its own breakthrough: the seamless external folding of the Mate X, the seamless internal folding of the Mate X2, and the thin and powerful Mate X3. Each generation has pushed the technical envelope. The latest in this line, the HUAWEI Mate XT tri-fold smartphone, unveiled earlier this year in China, has astonished industry observers.
Solving Real-World Challenges
Success isn’t solely about innovation for its own sake. Huawei’s progress has been driven by a deep understanding of user needs. Listening to consumer feedback and addressing real-world challenges has been a cornerstone of Huawei’s strategy. Huawei identified three major challenges associated with foldable devices: the durability of the foldable screen, the weight and build of the device, and the creasing that could appear over time from repeated folding.
Addressing these common user pain points quickly became a top priority. This user-centric approach led to creative solutions for Huawei’s foldables, including the development of the water drop hinge, an advanced precision hinge system, and the integration of Kunlun Glass.
Moreover, Huawei has successfully maintained slim and lightweight designs; the latest Mate XT has been widely praised for its incredibly thin profile, comparable to the thickness of bi-fold smartphones from other leading brands.
Pioneering an Era-Defining Trend
Huawei’s influence on the smartphone industry is undeniable. Its innovations are now setting the standard for the industry. This not only reflects Huawei’s pioneering vision but also plays an essential role in fostering a healthier tech ecosystem, which has often lacked such forward-thinking advances. Huawei’s foldable technology is already making a positive impact on a smartphone market that was largely stagnating, inspiring other brands to follow suit and embrace a user-focused R&D strategy.
