Richard Yu Chengdong, executive director of Huawei and chairman of the board of directors of the Consumer Business Group, will introduce the Huawei Pura X mobile phone at the launch conference for the new product held in Shenzhen, China on March 20, 2025.
VCG | Visual China Group | Getty Images
Huawei’s Pura X, a foldable smartphone released on Thursday, is trying to create a viable alternative as it first ran the technology giant’s own operating system. Google’s Android and apple‘s ios.
When unfolded, the Pura X has a 6.3-inch display, but its 16:10 aspect ratio offers a larger screen area than most other smartphones on the market. The device folds into a compact square in half and has a 3.5-inch display with a camera on the front.
The Pura X starts with 7,499 Chinese yuan ($1,037).
This device is important for Huawei for two reasons.
First, since the end of 2023, Huawei has revived in the smartphone business in China following US sanctions for crippling sales.
Huawei has actively launched more unusual devices to differentiate itself from its rivals, including the TRIFOLD smartphone.
The company, covered in Shenzhen, is also challenging Apple in China.
According to International Data Corporation, Huawei’s market share in the fourth quarter of 2024 increased to 16.2% compared to 13.7% a year ago. Apple’s market share fell from 20% to 17.4% over the same period.
The second reason is that Pura X first ran Harmonyos 5, the latest version of Huawei’s self-developed operating system. It was first released in November as Harmonos and reportedly does not use code in the open source version of Google’s Android operating system.
This is an important step by Huawei to remove Google’s relationship with Android. In 2019, US sanctions forced Google to halt its work with Huawei.
The Pura X is also equipped with Xiaoyi, Huawei’s AI assistant. This is supported by a unique artificial intelligence model and a model developed by Deepseek.
