Chinese Smartphone maker Xiaomi, which has emerged the largest smartphone brand in India within a few years of its entry into the Indian market, recently dropped a video of what looks to be Xiaomi’s double-folding smartphone.
Xiaomi is now finally entering the niche club of smartphones by betting on foldable smartphones to contribute to the innovation. By showcasing its first foldable smartphone, Xiaomi joined the likes of Samsung, Motorola and LG who are also expected to release foldable smartphones in 2019.
Xiaomi’s Senior Vice President, Wang Xiang, shared a video on Twitter recently of what looks to be Xiaomi’s first-ever foldable smartphone.
In the video shared by Xiang on Twitter the device can been seen folding from either side towards the center, turning it into a smartphone with the active screen only on one side, the front. Moreover, the MiUI, Mi’s User Interface has been optimised for the change in display orientation. The UI is vertical in the tablet mode while in the smartphone mode, it is the regular MiUI.
Xiaomi’s Senior Vice President revealed in a post on Weibo that to implement a foldable display in the double-folding phone, Xiaomi is using a four-wheel drive foldable shaft technology. Xiaomi also claims that it is the world’s first-ever double folding phone. Meanwhile, Samsung is also reportedly gearing up to launch Galaxy F foldable phones at their Unpacked event.
Even though it is a seeming prototype as of now, which clearly states that there could be major upgradation, improvement and changes made to the product before Xiaomi has a device ready to be commercially announced, there have been no details dropped by the Chinese smartphone making giant. Although, it is expected that the company could showcase it at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) which is slated to kick-off in February this year.
Talking to the people commenting on his Twitter post, Xiang also asked people to suggest names for the new Xiaomi smartphone. While a huge number of names were being proposed, the few that caught Xiang’s attention were ‘OrigaMi’, ‘Mix Flex’ and ‘Dual Flex’.
What will be interesting is to find out if the company chooses one out of all the proposed name on the Senior Vice President’s Twitter post, or comes up with a new name altogether.
Having established its name in just four years of its entry into the Indian market, the Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi has become the number one player in entry-level and mid-range phones market. With 30% market share in the third quarter, it overtook the long-standing market leader South Korean technology major Samsung.
The company is now set on a rapid expansion with bigger plans for offline expansion. With 43 offline stores across key cities, Xiaomi is aiming to expand the network to over 100 stores in the next year. It is already a number one brand in 40 out of 43 cities it is present.
Excited to share this video of a special Xiaomi smartphone from our President and Co-founder Bin Lin. It is the world’s first ever double folding phone — that’s pretty cool, isn’t it? #xiaomi #foldingphone #technology pic.twitter.com/iBj0n3vIbW
— Wang Xiang (@XiangW_) January 23, 2019
