World's first tri-fold smartphone is reaching unreal prices online

The world’s first tri-fold smartphone is reaching unreal price tags due to limited availability. According to a new report, the Huawei Mate XT Ultimate Design is being flipped for over $7,000 on certain online marketplaces.

As a reminder, the device launched in China on September 10, and it’s going on sale this Friday. It launched for a starting price of CNY19,999 ($2,809). Well, on certain marketplaces it goes for three times that much, it would seem.

World’s first tri-fold smartphone is reaching unreal prices online

On the BABA flea market app Xianyu, Alibaba Group Holding’s marketplace, it’s listed for as high as CNY49,999, which is over $7,000. Some sellers are reported to be asking for around CNY100,000 ($14,000) for the device.

Needless to say, those prices are… unreal. The Huawei Mate XT is expected to arrive to global markets at some point after all, well, at least it seems like it. Huawei has started promoting the device via its global media channels.

The Huawei Mate XT Ultimate Design is almost as thin as the Galaxy Z Fold 6 despite the fact it’s a tri-fold handset. It comes with a 10.2-inch 3K display, which can fold down to both 7.9-inch and 6.4-inch sizes.

The phone is fueled by the Kirin 9010 chip, Huawei’s latest and greatest processor. It also includes 16GB of RAM and 256GB, 512GB, or 1TB of storage. All three of those are options Huawei is offering.

This phone could make an appearance during a global event tomorrow, at least a brief appearance

It remains to be seen if Huawei will show off this device at tomorrow’s Barcelona event. Huawei is expected to announce some smartwatches and tablets there, and possibly show the world this tri-fold handset.

Both HONOR and Xiaomi are allegedly working on their tri-fold offerings. Those will be interesting to see, as HONOR is reportedly aiming at a 10mm thickness when folded. The Huawei Mate XT is 12.8mm thick. We’re not sure how realistic HONOR’s goal is, but the Magic V3 is unrealistically thin, so… we’ll see.