Huawei Mate X may now launch in September
The delay is due to internal testing and not the U.S. ban
The Huawei Mate X has been delayed until September, according to the Wall Street Journal. The story quotes Vincent Peng, a Senior Vice President at Huawei. The Huawei Mate X was expected to be launched by summer in select markets.
According to Vincent Peng, the company is doing extensive tests on the device and are looking to release the phone as soon as possible. The time-frame for this seems to be around September. This, however, comes as no surprise. The Huawei Mate X was announced right alongside the Samsung Galaxy Fold, a device that has had a plethora of issues already. Early reviewers of the Galaxy Fold found multiple points of failure with the device, all stemming from one or the other issue with the display. Early reviewers found the display breaking with unexpected ease, causing Samsung to delay the launch indefinitely. Given the Samsung Galaxy Fold’s issues, it is to be expected that Huawei would want to be double-sure about the quality of their foldable smartphone.
Huawei is also currently facing a real threat to its business in the form of the sanctions put in place by the U.S. Government which prevent any American company from doing business with Huawei. This meant that the Chinese telecom giant would no longer have access to Google’s Android or the Play Store. In the wake of the blacklisting, Huawei also lost critical ties with companies like ARM and many others, putting the future of Huawei’s smartphone business in jeopardy. The company was later offered a 90-day respite where American corporations were allowed to resume business with Huawei and at the time of signing the reprieve, any device that had already been launched in the market could continue to get Android updates.
Even if Huawei manages to launch the phone in September, it is unclear whether the Huawei Mate X will launch with the Google Suite of apps and services pre-installed, given that the smartphone hasn’t been launched yet and is hence, not covered under the special provisions. What we can only hope for is that the phone is free from any hardware issues at launch.
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