Huawei Mate Xs foldable smartphones gifted to Tencent employees turn up on second-hand e-commerce store
- After Tencent employees received Huawei’s foldable Mate Xs smartphone, new listings started showing up online
- The Mate X series is Huawei’s answer to the Samsung Galaxy Fold, but it does not have access to Google apps and services
If you have been waiting to pick up Huawei’s latest foldable phone for a good price, now might be the time to strike. Several Mate Xs devices are popping up on second-hand markets, and Tencent might be to blame – although the company likely did not intend it.
On Wednesday, Tencent Holdings reportedly gave the phones out as a generous reward to 10,000 employees working in its Platform and Content Group (PCG). Not long after, listings for the phones started showing up online with descriptions like, “Company gift, completely new real product!”
Tencent did not respond to a request for comment.
The Mate Xs is the second generation foldable 5G smartphone from Huawei. Similar to the Samsung Galaxy Fold, the Mate Xs unfolds into an 8-inch tablet. But unlike the Fold, the Xs folds outwards so that the foldable display is always exposed.
The lucky PCG employees got the phone as a gift for the second anniversary of the department dedicated to creating content for Tencent’s social, video and news platforms. It also came a day ahead of National Day on October 1, a holiday commemorating the founding of the People’s Republic of China.
The gift seems especially generous given that it has been hard to come by in China. Soon after it went on sale in March, the Mate Xs immediately sold out.
This might be why people were quick to list their brand new phones on Xianyu, the second-hand goods platform owned by Alibaba Group Holding, which owns the South China Morning Post. The Mate Xs model with 8GB of RAM and 512GB of storage can be found there starting at 17,500 yuan.
If Tencent employees are looking to get some extra cash from their company gift, though, they are no longer just competing against other scalpers. Huawei sold another limited stock of the phone on National Day, when some buyers were able to pick up the device for the original 16,999 price.
Given limited availability, it is difficult to tell how popular expensive foldable smartphones like the Mate Xs are. But while Huawei remains widely popular in China, the company’s mobile products continue to face challenges overseas now that they do not have access to Google apps and services. This includes the Mate Xs, along with other Huawei devices launched in the last year.
