Huawei on Friday announced that its new 5G Mate X Foldable smartphone would be launched in September as opposed to its initial schedule of launching in June; Reuter reports.
This announcement was made on Friday at the WSJ Conference in Hong Kong. Huawei strongly affirmed that this delay was not owing to the US government blacklisting incident. Instead, it is to offer them some time to work on making the device and maintain their reputation through excellent user experience; CNBC reported.
The Huawei’s head of corporate communications, Vincent Pang stated on Friday that the company is further testing the smartphones with wireless carrier companies before approval. He told the WSJ Tech that the tests should be done by August and the phone will be set to launch in September.
On the other hand, Huawei’s biggest competitor in the smartphone business, Samsung has denied rumors that they will be postponing their launch of the Samsung Galaxy Fold, CNET reported. This rumor followed after the Korean company delayed the launch of their new Galaxy Fold which was initially scheduled for April 26th in the United States and May 3rd in the UK. The launch has been expected to happen in June and from Samsung’s denial of the rumor, the launch date is still on the table; BBC News reported.
The Korean tech giants postponed their earlier launch because of reports coming from the first reviewers of the smartphone that the screens were broken after use for some time. Samsung explained that this could be caused by the opening on the hinges where the device folding is, CNN reported.
Although a Samsung official debunked the fact that the phone will be launched in June saying, “Nothing has progressed since the April delay,” reports from CNET noted.
Experts believe that Huawei has possibly postponed their launch to test further the chances of their phones developing the same problem reported of its competition and find solutions before its launch date.
“The Mate X was always going to come later than Samsung’s Galaxy Fold, but the Korean phone maker’s problems have certainly given Huawei more breathing space,” CCS Insight’s Ben Wood told BBC Business on Friday. Although Huawei had an objective of beating their Korean competitor to emerge top of the smartphone industry, their pursuit has been deterred by the US “entity list” situation irrespective of this opportunity presented by the Galaxy Fold’s delayed launch.

Photo by Omar Markhieh

Huawei’s Upcoming Operating System

At the WSJ Conference on Friday, Huawei mentioned that their Hongmeng operation system which is being tested at the moment might be set to roll out with six to nine months, Reuter reported.
Pang made clear their preference for Google Android OS for their smartphones, but owing to the situation presented by the US-China trade conflict; they would have to roll out the Hongmeng OS within the stipulated time. Also, he went on to make it clear that Huawei’s delay in launching their new Mate X has nothing to do with the US sanction claiming that the company only needed to time to further test the product and secure approval from carrier companies.
The Chinese tech giants have applied to trademark their OS in numerous countries as a plan to stay in the smartphone business worldwide, Reuter reported. The trademark was given a positive response by the Chinese Intellectual Property Administration, last month after the US blacklisting.

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