Huawei launched the Mate Xs, its 2nd generation foldable smartphone, earlier in February this year. Unfortunately for the Chinese brand, the phone has not generated the profit it had hoped for and is instead, being sold at a loss.
According to Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei Consumer Business, the Mate Xs has caused a loss between US$60 and US$70 million ( between US$258 million and US$301 million). Even despite the phone’s RM11111 price tag. Yu explains that one of the reasons for the loss is due to the phone’s high production cost, with the flexible display being one of the most expensive components for the phone.
While Yu doesn’t outrightly say it, it can also be reasoned that another reason behind the loss could be attributed to the lack of Google Mobile Services (GMS) on the Mate Xs. Much like the non-foldable Mate 30 series and recently launched P40 series smartphones, the Mate Xs is not allowed to ship out with Google apps pre-loaded, for reasons that are clearly obvious by now.
That isn’t the say that the Mate Xs isn’t worth a look. Specs-wise, the foldable device runs on Huawei’s powerful Kirin 990 5G SoC, has 8GB RAM, a 512GB internal storage capacity that is expandable via Huawei’s NM card, and a main triple-camera module that is identical to the phone used on the P30 Pro.
