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the starting price of the mate xt is 19,999 yuan, and it will be officially available on september 20. image source: huawei

on september 10, huawei released a new triple-folding screen phone - mate xt. compared with the folding screen phones currently launched by major chinese mobile phone brands, mate xt has an extra folding screen and is positioned as an "ultra-high-end mobile phone". the starting price is as high as 19,999 yuan, and it is called the "electronic moutai".

at noon on september 7, before any price or configuration was announced, the mate xt was available for pre-order on huawei's official website. two days later, the number of online reservations exceeded 3 million. after the official price was announced on september 10, the number of reservations reached 4 million. as of press time, the number of reservations exceeded 4.108 million and is still growing rapidly.

the chinese mobile phone market has long entered the stock market, which is extremely saturated and a typical red ocean. in terms of the current market capacity, 4 million pre-orders are quite amazing. according to data provided by research firm counterpoint, this number is close to 25% of the global foldable screen mobile phone shipments in 2023, and is close to the entire chinese foldable screen mobile phone market shipments in the first half of 2024. in other words, according to common sense, it is extremely unlikely that this phone will sell 4 million units in a short period of time.

but from another perspective, the current situation of the mate xt being sought after seems reasonable. last september, huawei released the mate 60 mobile phone equipped with its own chip, and it was sold out on all e-commerce platforms in just a few tens of seconds after the pre-sale. the premium of the pro version once exceeded 1,000 yuan, and some scalpers who stocked up made a lot of money. since then, huawei's new phones have begun to be called "electronic moutai", meaning that like moutai, they are suitable for reselling and are "hard currency" with high premiums and high liquidity in the secondary market.

how come a phone with a staggering price was sold out so quickly during pre-orders? who is actually buying the huawei mate xt? we found out through feedback from multiple sources thatthis round of 4 million people rushing to buy is not just a scalper's carnival, the reason for this phenomenon is related to huawei's mobile phone layout. professional scalpers are an important driving force, but they are not the ones who have the opportunity to swallow the most profits.

shenzhen was still scorching hot on september 7. at a huawei flagship store in nanshan, consumers who came to pre-order the triple-folding screen smartphone in the scorching heat had lined up in a long queue, blocking the entire floor. the store clerks, who had almost no space to stand, were busy guiding the queues while distributing mineral water to consumers in case they waited too long.

after an afternoon, the girl in line finally received a successful reservation, but her happiness was short-lived. the staff told her that reservation was a registration of intention, and whether she could buy it depended on the result of the lottery. if she won the lottery, she would be notified to come to the store to pay.

on september 10, before huawei's press conference, huawei's shenzhen mixc store was crowded with consumers. image source: gu lingyu/photo

on september 9, when we came to the store again, we were told that offline reservations had ended and that we needed to wait patiently for subsequent purchases. at this time, the number of people who had made online reservations had reached nearly 3 million. on the second-hand trading platform xianyu, a large number of transaction pages for transferring reservation orders began to appear. each mate xt was priced between 30,000 and 90,000 yuan, and the premium offered by the merchants was at least 10,000 yuan, with a deposit of 5,000 yuan.

through communication with these merchants, we found that although no one talked about the source channels, we can divide them into three categories by observing their past sales history: one is terminal scalpers, who mainly resell various terminal products, and the source of goods may come from dealers; one is industry chain scalpers, who usually have experience in oem of mobile phones and parts, and the source of goods may come from the original factory or supply chain; the other is pure amateurs, such as those who claim to have multiple huawei mall accounts and can take pictures and grab goods on behalf of others.

however, these merchants have one thing in common: they are all retail scalpers. that is to say, they place small orders, the supply is not stable, and the arrival of goods cannot be guaranteed.

after huawei announced the price of its new products, the price of new phones on second-hand platforms generally reached 40,000 to 50,000 yuan. image source: internet

the product is more scarce than any previous rush sale. this is the biggest feature of the rush to buy huawei's new tri-fold screen phone mate xt.generally speaking, if a product wants to get a high premium in the secondary market, it must be like a concert ticket for a big star, and must have two prerequisites: high scarcity and high liquidity. for example, the two biggest reasons for the rush to buy the mate 60 when it was launched last year were: first, after huawei's mobile phone business was sanctioned, loyal users had not changed their phones for many years, and the market user base was large, with the possibility of high circulation; second, the mate 60 used independent chips and the early stock was insufficient, making it a highly scarce product.

the scarcity and circulation of the mate xt are not inferior to those of the mate 60. under existing technology, it is difficult to realize the technology of three-fold screen mobile phones. first of all, three-fold screen mobile phones need to use special screen materials, which not only maintain the visual sense and sensitivity of the screen, but also have good folding durability; in addition, the hinge design of three-fold screen mobile phones is more complicated, and the yield rate of mass production is difficult to guarantee; and as the number of folds increases, the difficulty of reducing creases also increases accordingly. at the same time, as the screen area increases, the requirements for battery life and weight reduction are also higher, and the overall manufacturing process is more difficult.

therefore, the cost and technical difficulty of a three-folding screen mobile phone are much higher than those of an ordinary mobile phone. so far, although many brands have unveiled prototypes of three-folding screen mobile phones, huawei has taken the lead in mass production. therefore, owning a unique huawei mate xt is actually a "status symbol".

the first round of stock of mate xt is not much. some media quoted the supply chain as saying that the first round of stock in the channel will not exceed 40,000 units. a huawei dealer told us that there are about 50 huawei smart life halls and authorized experience stores in his city, and only about 8 stores have received the first batch of supplies.

huawei usually opens internal purchasing channels for its products to employees. however, in the short term, internal purchasing channels are not working well. a middle-level manager of huawei's r&d line told us that he also wanted to buy a new three-fold screen phone, but neither he nor his colleagues had any internal channels.another huawei middle-level manager in charge of ecosystem expansion said that only leaders in certain key positions were provided with a preferential purchase code internally, so that leaders in external positions could buy it to maintain customer relationships. the price cannot be cheap, and it can only be guaranteed to be obtained quickly.

therefore, the seemingly abnormal phenomenon of mate xt being snapped up is actually normal - due to the scarcity and high liquidity of new phones, they have the ability to command a high premium in the early days of their launch.

"it's like buying a financial product with a good rate of return." an apple user who has never used a huawei product also pre-ordered a new huawei phone. he said that many of his colleagues and friends who had pre-ordered a phone were not interested in the actual product like him, but were just looking for financial management and a trial-the-waters mentality.

however, among these 4 million pre-orderers, most will not be able to get the first round of new phones.

since the current rush to buy is not a real demand, will this bubble burst over time? will the products be left in the hands of scalpers or even sold at a discount?

the answer is no. as long as the gap between demand and supply is large enough, there is almost no risk for resellers.

the mass production technology of the new three-fold screen phone is not mature, the cost is high and the market is small, which means that its shipment volume will not be large. however, in this case, huawei chose to start pre-orders without a deposit.a senior huawei dealer told us that this is a marketing strategy. "the pre-order threshold is low, which arouses popularity. once popularity is aroused, demand will increase. as long as there is demand, there will be room for channels to increase prices."

we learned that in order to hype up the popularity of the mate xt, even though the store had stock, the dealer and his staff placed reservations online. his reason was simple: huawei chose a narrow channel and high premium strategy, which was actually a disguised reward and subsidy for dealers. the industry often evaluates the market performance of a mobile phone by observing its supply status. if a mobile phone is out of stock, it is usually interpreted as a high profit margin for the model. the strong premium ability of the product is one of the important reasons why dealers follow huawei.

before huawei's mobile phone business returned, dealers were once faced with a shortage of goods to sell. before the launch of the mate 60 series, huawei laid out its channels in advance and encouraged dealers to expand stores against the trend during the trough, which laid the foundation for the mate 60 series to quickly occupy the market and also allowed dealers who had been waiting for a long time to quickly recover.

however, as the momentum of the mate 60 faded and product supply was insufficient, sales began to decline in the first quarter of 2024. subsequently, huawei's pocket 2 and pura 70 sales also fell short of expectations, highlighting the contradiction that the channel development speed exceeded the product speed. at the same time, the price increase of huawei products also brought sales pressure to stores.

for stores, a hot-selling high-premium product not only means profit margins, but also helps to enhance the brand image to offset the adverse effects of a weak market.

the aforementioned dealer said that huawei has strictly screened the channels. in order to meet the product's tone, the stores that really have the opportunity to sell the mate xt must be high-end stores, and there can't be many of them. at this stage, due to the high pressure on dealers, huawei also did not require dealers to carry out the common "bundling"(distributors sell slow-selling products in order to have the opportunity to obtain the manufacturer's best-selling products).

however, he believes that once the market picks up, it is only a matter of time before he is asked to “piggyback” on sales.

narrow channels, small supply, and unremitting marketing efforts, all signs indicate that huawei is still "testing the waters" in the slightly unfamiliar ultra-high-end market.

last september, huawei launched a new ultra-high-end brand, "ultimate design", with the first batch of products including the mate 60 rs ultimate design mobile phone, priced at rmb 11,999, and the huawei watch ultimate design watch, made of 18k gold and priced at rmb 21,999. the huawei mate xt ultimate design is its second mobile phone.

the new phone starts at nearly 20,000 yuan, targeting the ultra-high-end market. image source: huawei press conference

ethan qi, deputy director of counterpoint research, believes that the launch of the mate xt can consolidate huawei's technological leadership in the folding screen field. this is a correct strategy to a certain extent, because this process will help huawei accumulate experience in developing more complex folding smartphones. as folding screen technology matures and consumers are more and more accepting of folding screen phones, it is wise for huawei to choose this time to launch a new product with more acceptable weight, thickness and reliability.

in terms of mobile phone layout, huawei's two most important product series are the mate series released in autumn and the pura series released in spring. the former is mainly for business people, while the latter emphasizes the camera function and is aimed at the younger market. the starting price of the new models in both product series is more than 5,000 yuan. according to our understanding, the release time of mate 70 this year has been postponed, but the starting price may continue to increase.

huawei's layout on the channel side is also in line with the ultra-high-end strategy. information from dealers shows that huawei is accelerating its investment in "luxury stores" and has high requirements for store location, operation, personnel management, and products sold.

the aforementioned dealers interviewed told us that these "luxury stores" should be "next to luxury brands such as lv and have the temperament of luxury goods." at the same time, for ordinary stores, huawei has upgraded its emphasis on the sales ability of store sales to the service ability of store sales, trying to transform stores from simply selling goods to managing customers, thereby improving customer stickiness and brand tone.

judging from the law of product iteration and evolution, foldable screen mobile phones are most likely to become huawei's weapon to break through in the ultra-high-end market. according to data from market research firm idc, in the chinese foldable screen mobile phone market, huawei will firmly rank first with a market share of 41.7% in the second quarter of 2024, vivo and honor will rank second and third with market shares of 23.1% and 20.9% respectively, oppo will rank fourth with a market share of 8.4%, and samsung will rank fifth with a market share of 3.0%.

however, from the perspective of the overall market, huawei's advantage is not obvious. according to idc data, in the first quarter of 2024, honor ranked first with a market share of 17.1%, huawei ranked second with a market share of 17.0%, and oppo, apple and vivo ranked third to fifth respectively.

in the second quarter, vivo ranked first in china's smartphone market with a market share of 18.5%, a year-on-year increase of 17.1%. huawei followed closely behind with a market share of 18.1%, a year-on-year increase of more than 50%. oppo ranked in the top three with a market share of 15.7%, while honor and xiaomi ranked fourth and fifth with market shares of 14.5% and 14% respectively.

in the red ocean, the competition in china's mobile phone market is extremely cruel. the industry characteristics of "whoever wins the high-end market wins the world" remain unchanged, but new variables have begun to appear in this market due to the return of huawei. on september 10, apple also released the new iphone 16 series, but the past grand occasions of selling at a premium and being hard to find did not appear again.on a second-hand trading platform, a merchant with an apple logo on his profile picture is trying hard to promote his new business, "huawei hardcore players, add 10,000 yuan to (the official price of the phone) and we will deliver it to your home by sf express."