Enlarge / A Huawei Technologies Co. Mate X5 smartphone arranged in Hong Kong, China, on Saturday, Sept. 16, 2023. (credit: Bloomberg via Getty)

Every large smartphone maker except Apple is betting that “foldable” phones will help revive a lacklustre mobile market, despite the devices still largely failing to attract mainstream consumers.

Foldables, which have a screen that opens like a book or compact mirror, barely exceed a 1 per cent market share of all smartphones sold globally almost five years after they were first introduced.

But Samsung has doubled down on the product, investing heavily in marketing this year. In July, the Korean group released its 5G Galaxy Z series.

Enlarge (credit: FT)

In late 2020, Huawei was fighting for its survival as a mobile phone maker.

A few months earlier, the Trump administration had hit the Chinese company with crippling sanctions, cutting it off from global semiconductor supply chains.

The sanctions prevented anyone without a permit from making the chips Huawei designed, and the company was struggling to procure new chips to launch more advanced handsets.