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During a recent product launch conference held on March 20, 2025, in Shenzhen, China, Richard Yu Chengdong, the executive director of Huawei and chairman of the Consumer Business Group, unveiled the company’s latest innovation, the HUAWEI Pura X smartphone.
This new foldable device is noteworthy as it becomes the first smartphone from Huawei to operate on HarmonyOS 5, the company’s proprietary operating system, marking a significant move towards establishing a robust alternative to the dominant platforms of Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS.
When fully opened, the Pura X features a spacious 6.3-inch display, boasting a 16:10 aspect ratio that provides a wider visual experience than most competing smartphones currently available. In its folded state, the device presents a compact square shape with a 3.5-inch display, also housing a front-facing camera.
The starting price for the Pura X is set at 7,499 Chinese yuan, equivalent to approximately $1,037.
This launch carries significant implications for Huawei for two primary reasons.
Firstly, the company’s smartphone segment has experienced a resurgence within China since late 2023, following the imposition of U.S. sanctions that considerably affected its market performance. In response, Huawei has strategically introduced a lineup of distinctive devices, such as the trifold smartphone, aiming to carve out a unique niche in the crowded smartphone market.
Additionally, Huawei has emerged as a competitive force against Apple in the Chinese market. According to data from the International Data Corporation, Huawei’s market share climbed to 16.2% in the fourth quarter of 2024, compared to 13.7% a year earlier, while Apple saw its share diminish from 20% to 17.4% during the same period.
The second reason for the significance of the Pura X is its role as the inaugural device to run on HarmonyOS 5. This development follows the initial introduction of HarmonyOS Next in November, which was designed to eliminate the dependency on Google’s Android codebase. This transition underscores Huawei’s commitment to disentangling from its previous ties with Google following the sanctions that disrupted their collaboration in 2019.
Furthermore, the Pura X is integrated with Xiaoyi, Huawei’s artificial intelligence assistant, which leverages both Huawei’s proprietary AI models and contributions from DeepSeek, showcasing the company’s advancements in AI technology.
Source
www.cnbc.com