Huawei Confirms MWC 2020 Presence, Teases Launch of New Foldable Phone

Huawei is hosting a briefing on February 23 in Barcelona to showcase its new developments at Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2020. The Chinese company revealed its product briefing details through a teaser posted on Weibo. Unlike Huawei, companies such as Vivo, Intel, MediaTek, HMD Global, Nokia, and Sony recently withdrew their presence from MWC 2020 over ongoing coronavirus fears. The outbreak of the latest coronavirus attack, which is known as Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19), has claimed more than 1,000 lives since its first emergence in Wuhan, China.

The teaser posted by Huawei on its Weibo account shows its product briefing on February 23 and highlights the 1+8+N marketing strategy that the company introduced last year to grow its consumer market presence beyond smartphones and give focus on connected devices. The teaser also suggests the launch of a foldable phone -- in addition to some new notebooks, smartphones, and wearables.

Huawei has teased its new products debuting at MWC 2020
Photo Credit: Weibo

If we look at the recent reports, Huawei is building the Mate Xs as its new foldable smartphone that would debut as the successor to the Mate X that was launched at the MWC last year.

The new Mate X-series model is rumoured to have an improved hinge design and an enhanced display panel. It is also said to have 65W charging support and come with the HiSilicon Kirin 990 5G SoC.

Up until now, the Huawei Mate X is limited to the China market with a price tag of CNY 16,999 (roughly Rs. 1,74,000). The phone was expected to enter global markets to compete against the Samsung Galaxy Fold. However, Huawei wasn't able to expand its existence apart from the China market due to hardware constraints.

Huawei separately confirmed to Gadgets 360 about its plans to attend MWC 2020 and emphasised that it would work with GSMA “preventive measures to help contain the spread” of COVID-19.

“The health and safety of our employees and other attendees is our top priority for this event,” the company noted in an email to Gadgets 360.

Given the increase in withdrawals due to the Novel Coronavirus outbreak, it is quite uncertain whether Huawei would adhere to its original plan and participate at MWC 2020. Vivo, Nokia, Intel, MediaTek, HMD Global, and NTT DoCoMo are amongst the key participants that have recently decided to withdraw their presence from the forthcoming trade show. In fact, GSMA, the organiser of MWC, is reported to have scheduled a meeting to reassess the situation.