Xiaomi Prices Its Mid-Fold From 10,999 Yuan as Lei Jun Blames Costly Memory
Xiaomi ended its autumn launch night with a 10,999-yuan starting price for the 18 Fold, its first phone that folds twice into a three-panel screen, and a blunt explanation from founder Lei Jun for why it cannot be cheaper: memory chips have become brutally expensive. The show, hours after Huawei unveiled its own 19,999-yuan tri-fold, confirmed that China's flagship-phone race has entered a pricier era.
The screen behind Lei Jun at Monday night's launch event carried the number his audience had been arguing about for days: 10,999 yuan. That is the starting price of Xiaomi's 18 Fold, the company's first "mid-fold" — a phone that folds twice to open into something between a slab and a tablet — and it undercut the 12,000 yuan most commentators had expected. Storage tiers ran up to 15,999 yuan for a limited ceramic edition of which just 1,500 units will be sold, with first deliveries on September 10. (The price board, straight from the stage)
The discount came with a candid excuse. When users pressed Lei Jun in a pre-show comment thread to make the phone cheaper — one suggested 6,999 yuan — the founder replied that "memory is simply too expensive right now" and ruled the lower figure out as "not possible." (Lei Jun's exchange with users) It was an unusual admission on launch day, and it landed in a market already primed to believe it: Huawei, Honor and Xiaomi raised official prices across their lineups barely a week ago, and a Zhihu question about "why phones are collectively getting dearer" drew dealers reporting that customers no longer rush to buy when prices rise — they wait, or they walk away. (That earlier round of increases)
One commenter spelled out the mood: "The first time Lei Jun said memory would get dearer, people called it a sales pitch. The second time, they called it exaggeration. Now he says memory is too expensive, and the storage-tier price gaps on today's stage made it real." (The comment, widely seconded)
The show's other half belonged to the cars. Xiaomi used the same stage to put its Pengcheng electric SUVs — the N70 and the larger N90 — on official sale, the products at the center of the company's push to turn its phone-brand gravity into car-market volume. Pre-sale prices had been set at 259,900 yuan for the N70 and 299,900 for the N90, and fans spent launch day trading guesses in the comments about where the final numbers would land. (Pre-sale figures and the guessing game) The stakes are visible in Xiaomi's own numbers: the car division says it has delivered 185,000 vehicles in its first six months, about a third of its 550,000-unit annual target — respectable for a newcomer, but a pace that requires the volume-oriented SUVs to sell. (One widely shared pricing analysis)
Timing framed everything. The event began hours after Huawei's own presentation revealed the Mate XT 2 tri-fold at 19,999 yuan and up, carrying the first new Kirin flagship chip in six years — the two companies, alongside Apple's show later this week, turning the first September week into a compressed referendum on who defines the foldable's next act. (Huawei's launch, as charted on Baidu) As this site covered before the show, the two rivals' events were always meant to be read together; the surprise was not the hardware but the arithmetic.
The 10,999-yuan price is the sharpest signal yet that the era when Chinese phones mainly meant cheap phones is closing: the world's most competitive phone market is now arguing about memory costs, not discounts.
