Xiaomi (1810 HK) says it will unveil its new center-fold Xiaomi 18 Fold smartphone on Sept. 7 at 19:00 Beijing time (12:00 BST)

Xiaomi (1810 HK) says it will unveil its new center-fold Xiaomi 18 Fold smartphone on Sept. 7 at 19:00 Beijing time (12:00 BST)

Flagship handset launches from the major Chinese smartphone makers follow a well-worn cadence: a launch event, a pre-order window, then channel checks on first-weekend sell-through, with the equity reaction historically driven less by the announcement itself than by the early demand signals that follow. For foldables specifically, the segment remains a small share of total volumes but carries outsized weight in the average selling price and margin mix narrative, which is where the product cycle feeds through to earnings. The read-across tends to be peer-relative: how the device prices and specs against rival foldable lines from the domestic Android set determines whether this is share-taking or merely range-filling. Worth noting that the company's investment case in recent periods has been increasingly anchored to its electric vehicle ramp, so handset events have tended to move the stock only modestly unless they signal a shift in the core consumer electronics trajectory. The near-term follow-ons are the event itself, pricing, and the first sell-through and supply chain checks in the days after.