The most fiercely competitive September in history, Xiaomi and Huawei are going all out.

Apple's foldable devices are coming, storage prices are skyrocketing, and every flagship phone that has to raise its price needs to give consumers a convincing reason to open their wallets.

This September, the launch events of domestic mobile phone brands will be so dense that they are almost competing head-to-head.

On September 7, Huawei will launch two phones with extremely different forms at one event: one is the third-generation triple-fold Mate XT2, whose screen can be folded twice; the other is the wide straight-screen Pura X View, which cannot be folded at all. On September 8, Xiaomi will launch its first wide foldable phone, the Xiaomi 18 Fold, 24 hours before Apple.

In the early hours of Beijing time on September 10, Apple's autumn launch event will kick off. The most anticipated product is Apple's first foldable phone, which is also the most expensive iPhone in history - a wide foldable device. The outside world predicts its starting price for the Chinese mainland version is around 15,000 yuan, and the top configuration version may be close to 20,000 yuan. The iPhone 18 Pro series will also be unveiled at the same event.

There are still many brands queuing up later. On September 17, OPPO will hold the ColorOS 17 Launch Event and Developer Conference, and will release the Find X10 series on September 22. At the end of September, Huawei's annual flagship Mate 90 series may be the grand finale, and new flagships from vivo and Honor are also scheduled for this window.

For comparison, last year, from Apple launching new phones to Huawei's Mate 80 series as the grand finale, the product launch timeline stretched from September all the way to November 25, spanning nearly 3 months. This year, all key players are set to make their debut in the same month, and the exclusive market education window for each brand has been shortened from two or three weeks to just a few days.

This is not a simple schedule collision.

The reason why all brands can move up their new product schedules as a whole first lies in the relatively loose product pace in the first half of the year. "There were relatively few new projects in the first half of this year, and most manufacturers have a trend of advancing their launch schedules," Lin Keyu, senior analyst at Counterpoint Research, told *China Entrepreneur*.

The reason why they are all in a hurry to get ahead of Apple is explained by the distribution channel side as seizing the time window. Apple's pre-order will start on September 12, which means that before Apple's public attention peak arrives, they can capture a wave of attention and consumer budgets first. A person from the distribution channel side told *China Entrepreneur* that Xiaomi scheduled its launch event on September 8 precisely to seize this time difference.

The crowded September launch schedule also stems from the pressure from the upstream supply chain.

The price hike of memory chips was described by Cook, the just-retired Apple CEO, as a "once-in-a-century flood". The proportion of memory cost in the total bill of materials of a mobile phone has risen from 10% to 34%. On September 1, Huawei, Xiaomi and Honor announced a collective price adjustment, with the previous generation of flagship phones seeing a universal price increase of 800 yuan to 1000 yuan per tier.

All the products to be released in September are the top-tier flagship models of each brand. Many analysts said their pricing is generally 1000 yuan to 2000 yuan higher than that of the previous generation, "The cost is out of control, and it will continue to rise in the future." Many e-commerce platforms have also launched marketing slogans like "If you don't buy this year, it will be more expensive next year", trying to release the accumulated demand for phone replacement before this year's Double 11 shopping festival.

The Most Crowded September: Everyone Shows Their Hole Cards

Price hike is the most prominent theme this September.

According to industry insiders' predictions, the starting price of the standard Xiaomi 18 may reach 5499 yuan, a full 1000 yuan higher than the previous generation, and the Pro and Pro Max versions are expected to rise to 5999 yuan and 6999 yuan respectively. Apple also cannot withstand the memory cost pressure. The starting price of the iPhone 18 Pro is rumored to be 9999 yuan or even higher, and the foldable screen model will be around 15000 yuan.

This round of price hikes did not start in September. Lin Keyu recalled to *China Entrepreneur* that the new generation of foldable phones OPPO Find N6 and vivo X Fold 6 have already raised their prices compared with the previous generation, with a price increase range of 1000 to 1500 yuan.

On September 1, Huawei, Xiaomi and Honor collectively adjusted their prices. The entire Huawei Mate 80 series saw a universal price increase of 800 yuan per tier, and the Mate 80 Pro and Pro Max increased by 1000 yuan per tier. The top configuration version reached 9999 yuan, just one step away from the 10,000-yuan mark. What is more severe than price hikes is production reduction. It is reported that due to the sharp rise in upstream costs, many manufacturers have cut their planned production of flagship phones by 30% to 50%. Qualcomm also previously announced that chips will increase in price starting from September, with a double-digit percentage increase.

Lu Weibing, CEO of Xiaomi Group, did the math at Xiaomi's 2026 Q2 earnings meeting: for an entry-level phone with "8GB+128GB", the memory cost alone converted to retail price exceeds 1500 yuan, "This hits entry-level phones the hardest."

Lin Keyu also said that mobile phone manufacturers' pricing is more based on their own product definition, bill of materials cost and market strategy. But this year, no one can make the numbers add up.

Memory cost is the reason for price hikes, but it is not the reason for consumers to pay. Every price-increased flagship phone needs a convincing explanation for consumers - technology is the most decent solution - so this September, everyone is showing their best technologies.

Apple will debut the A20 Pro chip using TSMC's 2nm process, which is also the only "2nm" chip across all products. The Xiaomi 18 Fold will debut the self-developed Xuanjie O3 chip, which uses TSMC's 3nm process, features a ten-core all-big-core architecture, and also grabbed the world's first launch of LPDDR6 memory, getting ahead of Qualcomm.

Source: AI Generated

What is intriguing is the name of this chip. Lu Weibing once called it "O2" in a previous live broadcast. Xiaomi did not explain the reason for skipping O2 and directly naming it O3, but emphasizing "technological generational leap" may be an important reason.

Huawei took another path. In May this year, He Tingbo, President of Huawei's Semiconductor Business, first proposed the "Tao (τ) Law", which uses time scaling to replace the geometric scaling of Moore's Law. Through double-layer stacking of logic folding, the transistor density is increased by 53.5% without advanced lithography machines, using mature process to approach the 3nm level.

At the end of September, the new Kirin chip debuted on the Mate 90 series will most likely be the first mass-produced answer delivered under the guidance of the "Tao (τ) Law".

Even OPPO took out the mobile phone system separately and held a launch event. This September, what they are competing for is no longer the launch schedule, but chips, systems, and whose story can better support the higher price tag.

Under the background of technology priority, the old script of scrambling for chip supply has been rewritten.

In previous years, the fixed event at the end of September was who could grab the first launch of Qualcomm Snapdragon chips. Lin Keyu said that previously, Xiaomi and Honor were the strong players in China to grab the first launch, but in recent years, the appeal of first launch has gradually weakened, and it cannot bring much real sales. This year, Xiaomi's wide foldable phone uses self-developed chips, and the drama of competing for the first launch has given way to the competition of self-developed technology.

AI that all brands talked about a lot in their launch events in the past two years is not a new variable in the eyes of analysts.

Li Zegang, Chief Analyst at Omdia, told *China Entrepreneur* that on-device AI is not currently a key factor influencing purchasing decisions, and the final decision will return to product performance and price. Lin Keyu put it more bluntly: Domestic manufacturers' AI has not yet formed an obvious gap at present, "Users can install Doubao themselves to use AI functions." AI cannot yet support the purchase reason for any new higher price tag.

The First Year of Wide Foldables: Some Enter the Market, Some Leave a Retreat

This September's competition is more concentrated on the "wide foldable" form.

Foldable phones have been an "awkward" category in China in recent years. Lin Keyu once disassembled this for *China Entrepreneur*: The user profile of the traditional book-style large foldable phones is business people with multi-screen and mobile office needs. The wide foldable phone widens the screen, which is more in line with users' daily usage habits such as watching videos, multitasking, and reading, and foldable phones have further expanded from business tools to a wider group of people.

The wide foldable phone widens the aspect ratio, making watching videos and multitasking more in line with daily usage habits, and for the first time, foldable phones have the possibility of changing from business tools to mass-market mobile phones. Li Zegang believes that wide foldable phones increase the horizontal display area, which conforms to people's visual reading habits, the interface is more immersive, and the volume is smaller than that of traditional large foldable phones.

The data is also fragmented. Statistics from Omdia show that global foldable phone shipments in the first half of this year fell 21.6% year-on-year, among which clamshell small foldable phones dropped by 47%. But the agency's full-year forecast for foldable phones is 21% growth - all the turning points are pinned on Apple.

Previously, news came from the supply chain that Apple's first foldable phone will be in the wide foldable form. Huawei has been exploring this path for some time.

IDC data shows that Huawei's wide foldable Pura X has shipped more than 1.5 million units within one year of its launch, which is more than the total shipments of flagship foldable phones of the next three manufacturers behind it. According to other supply chain data, as of mid-July 2026, the cumulative activation volume of the Pura X series has exceeded 2 million units.

Apple's usual strategy is to wait for others to "cultivate" the market and then enter to reap the benefits.

Lin Keyu reviewed this logic, Apple is used to waiting until the experience and market education are relatively mature before launching new products. At the developer conference earlier this year, Apple's changes at the system level have implicitly paved the way for foldable phones. Most of the users around the world who are willing to spend 10,000 to 15,000 yuan on mobile phones are originally Apple's users.

The forecasts from institutions are almost unanimous. Counterpoint predicts that Apple will capture 25% of the global foldable phone market share in its first year of entry, surpassing Huawei's 24%, while Huawei still accounted for 30% in 2025. "A year later, Apple will definitely be among the top three in China's foldable phone market."

However, the overtake of market share does not necessarily require direct head-on competition. The users of the two wide foldable phones are not targeting the same group. The starting price of the Xiaomi 18 Fold is rumored to be around 10,000 yuan, and Apple's price is 1.5 times that.

Lin Keyu's observation is that most brands make product planning more based on the upgrading needs of their existing users, rather than poaching users from other brands. "A user who has used Xiaomi since high school will most likely choose Xiaomi again after graduating from university. Path dependence is the norm in this industry." He believes that the foldable phone market is still growing, far from reaching a zero-sum game situation.

Channel insiders also revealed to *China Entrepreneur* that this wide foldable phone from Apple will be launched one month after its release, the first batch of spot goods is limited, and channels have expected that the price will be marked up.

Therefore, Apple is most likely to join the foldable phone market rather than break it apart.

*China Entrepreneur* learned from the channel side that Xiaomi scheduled its launch event on September 8, one day before Apple, and will also release the wide foldable Xiaomi 18 Fold. Ma Shiwen, analyst at Counterpoint Research, said that Xiaomi's move may aim to take advantage of the increased attention brought by Apple's entry into the foldable phone market to further expand the overall market popularity of the entire foldable phone category.

She believes that the shipment volume of foldable phones is relatively limited, and the pressure on chip supply is relatively controllable. Xiaomi's choice to equip this product with the self-developed Xuanjie O3 is conducive to highlighting the two technical highlights of the wide foldable form and the self-developed chip at the same time.

While Apple and Xiaomi are both very interested in wide foldable phones, Huawei, which knows the most about wide foldables, has quietly left itself a retreat.

The wide straight-screen Pura X View will be unveiled alongside the new triple-fold phone on September 7. This device was briefly mentioned as an Easter egg at the Hongmeng Smart Mobility new car launch event on August 20, and opened for reservation on Huawei Mall and JD that same day. On August 28, it launched pre-sales with a 200-yuan deposit, the price has not been announced yet, but the online reservation was sold out in minutes; third-party channels have started to accept marked-up reservations, and the market predicts its starting price is between 6000 yuan and 7000 yuan.

On August 28, Yu Chengdong mentioned in his Weibo video that a group of users bought the wide foldable Pura X, and specially put on a protective case that locks the body, using it as a wide-screen straight phone. Huawei saw this trend and simply made this non-foldable wide straight phone by itself. Users vote with their feet, what they want is "wideness", not "foldability".

If even the company that pioneered this path is guarding against the risk of unsalable foldable phones, then this vigorous entry of all parties is betting on foldability, or just a wider screen aspect ratio.

No One Can Afford to Lose

It is no secret that behind the dense launch events lies the collective shipment anxiety of mobile phone manufacturers.

In the first quarter of this year, Xiaomi's mobile phone business revenue fell 12.5% year-on-year, shipments fell 19.2%, second-quarter revenue fell another 7.5%, and shipments plummeted 26.5%. The gross profit margin of mobile phones dropped from 11.5% to 8.5%, and the group's adjusted net profit fell by more than 40% for two consecutive quarters. Omdia data shows that Xiaomi's domestic shipments fell by 35% in the first quarter, and its market share fell out of the top four.

Lin Keyu explained that Xiaomi's overseas basic market is mainly in emerging markets, and its main selling products are priced under 150 US dollars. Once the memory price rises, low-end phones are prone to supply problems. Other domestic Android mobile phone manufacturers are also facing similar dilemmas.

Photography: Wu Ying

Lu Weibing also clearly stated at the earnings meeting: "Xiaomi cannot simply pass on the rise in memory costs to consumers. The launch of flagship phones will determine our performance in the second half of this year and even next year."

However, in terms of how to cope with memory price hikes, the differentiation between manufacturers is far more cruel than the price hike itself.

*China Entrepreneur* learned from people in the supply chain