Huawei Technologies Co (華為), its spinoff brand Honor Terminal Co (榮耀) and Lenovo Group Ltd’s (聯想) Motorola have introduced plans for new foldable phones, betting on the nascent form factor to win over the ultra-competitive Chinese market.
Each firm is billing its upcoming device as a top-of-the-line handset, with Huawei pricing its P50 Pocket at 8,988 yuan (US$1,410), Honor calling the Magic V its first foldable flagship and a Lenovo executive poking fun at Motorola’s third attempt at a Razr clamshell handset.
Huawei is selling its foldable device in China after announcing it in a streamed event on Thursday.
The smartphone market is
Smartphone makers shipped 331.2 million units in the third quarter of the year, down 6.7 percent from 354.9 million units per year earlier, as supply chain constraints began to take effect, market research firm International Data Corp (IDC) said in a report last week.
Last quarter’s shipments were higher than the second quarter’s 313.2 million units, and although a slight decline was expected for the seasonally low third quarter, the actual decline for the period from July to September came in at more than twice the IDC’s forecast of a decline of 2.9 percent, it said on Thursday.
“Supply chain and component
Google on Tuesday launched the latest Pixel smartphones, betting on its first custom-designed system processor and a new version of the Android operating system to lure buyers away from Apple Inc’s iPhone.
The Pixel 6 and 6 Pro differ only slightly in size, memory and camera specs, with both built around Google’s Tensor system-on-chip, a custom semiconductor that took four years of development.
Tensor is optimized for Google’s strengths in image processing and artificial intelligence, helping deliver faster and more accurate speech recognition and better battery life.
While Google’s Android is the top smartphone operating system globally, the Alphabet Inc unit has a