Huawei is not waiting around. While the company still has at least two foldable phones left to release in 2026, it is already working on another small wide foldable for next year. That is according to a new leak from tipster DigitalChatStation, as reported by Huawei Central.
The news says a lot about how seriously Huawei is treating the foldable category. The company is not just reacting to competitors, it is trying to stay multiple steps ahead of them.
To understand why this matters, it helps to look at the pattern Huawei has been following. According to the tipster, the company has developed a deliberate rotation strategy to keep rivals off balance:
- When competitors prepare a large foldable, Huawei releases a wide foldable first
- When those rivals start working on wider fold models, Huawei drops a tri-fold device
- The company then closes the year with a large foldable, giving buyers more options
The upcoming tri-fold in that rotation is the Mate XT 2. The small wide foldable being discussed now would come after all of that, likely in 2027.
Huawei was the first brand to bring the wide foldable concept to market, and that early move has paid off. Brands including Honor, Xiaomi, Apple, and Samsung are all reportedly working on their own wide foldable devices. The category is going from a niche experiment to a legitimate segment of the smartphone market in a short period of time.
That growing competition is exactly why Huawei is already planning its next move. The tipster claims the new small foldable will have no direct competition when it arrives, suggesting the company is aiming for another design or feature combination that rivals have not yet caught up to.
What that means in practice is not clear yet. It could involve a thinner form factor, improved hinge technology, upgraded internal specs, or some combination of all three. Huawei’s current wide foldables have already set a high bar for screen quality and build, so the expectation is that this next model will push things further.
For consumers, the broader takeaway is that the foldable phone market in 2027 is shaping up to be far more competitive than it is today. Huawei is working to hold its ground, while Samsung, Apple, and Chinese rivals are all accelerating their own plans. Anyone sitting on the fence about buying a foldable phone may find the choices and the value on offer look very different in 12 to 18 months.