Some customers in China who lined up all night for the tri-folding Huawei Mate XT have been left disappointed after being told the $2,800 was not available for purchase unless their pre-order had been confirmed. Reuters reports that some customers had been lining up since 10 p.m. the night before only to be told the following morning that they couldn't just come and buy the phone without a pre-order.
A student, simply referred to as Ye by Reuters was quoted as saying:
"I've been here since 10 p.m. last night because this tri-folding phone is a first and I'm excited to support our country. But this is very disappointing. They should have made it clear we can’t buy."
That is what was happening at Huawei's flagship store in Shenzhen. However, there was a similar situation at the Huawei Wangfujing store in Beijing which told people they needed a pre-order to buy. There were reportedly around 30 people queuing at both of the stores. while in Beijing, around 100 people were apparently queuing for the latest iPhones.
In the context of the Mate XT, pre-ordering didn't require people to pay, it was actually more like a reservation. More than 6.5 million of these were made. Interestingly, that's double the 3.9 million foldable smartphones shipped worldwide during the second quarter.
Reuters also spoke to a 60-year-old businessman in Beijing referred to as Jiang. Just like Ye, Jiang also trotted out a nationalist line, saying:
"Chinese people need to support (Huawei). Our Huawei phones currently lag behind in terms of technology and chips, but it’s this gap that calls for our support."
For context, Huawei was heavily targeted by US sanctions restricting what hardware it can access and the software it can run on its phones. In China where the digital landscape is vastly different from in the West, it has managed to have some success with the launch of its own pieces of software to fill in the gaps left by Google.
Regarding the Mate XT, customers seemed to be mixed with one explaining that it's better than they expected it to be and another saying that it's too big and "not very practical".
Source: Reuters
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