Huawei Mate Xs delayed in some markets due to coronavirus

25/03/2020 DRSC Media Huawei News, Huawei News-English

The current coronavirus pandemic has delayed the release of the Huawei Mate Xs in some markets.

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Due to the current coronavirus pandemic raging in the Western world, Huawei’s newest foldable phone, the Mate Xs, has suffered from a series of delays. For instance, the device was expected to launch on the 20th of March through Amazon in Italy, but now the release has been pushed back to the 27th, the day after the launch of the P40 series.

The same can be said about the French store Fnac.com, as well as its other store, Darty, with both having the Mate Xs up for pre-order. Initially, both stores were expected to launch the device on the 20th, and start shipping the pre-orders by then, but things have now changed. Both stores are now claiming they’ll start shipping on the 31st of March. According to both the information provided by Fnac, as well as somebody from Huawei, this delay is due to stock issues coming from Huawei’s side, with the current coronavirus pandemic cited as the main reason.

If we come back to Amazon, it is unclear whether the online retailer will be able to fulfil those pre-orders, having seen a surge in orders over the past few days, as most of the Western world goes into lockdown and consumers turn to online stores for their shopping. The company has already specified they will start giving priority to “essential” items, such as beauty products or food, pressured both by their employees and the increase in orders. The situation seems to be the same regardless of the online retailer, with Fnac also appearing to be under pressure. For example, the French store was one of the many stores having up for pre-order the Nintendo Switch game “Animal Crossing: New Horizons”, releasing on the 20th. With the closure of their physical stores, the retailer has been forced to move all those pre-orders online, going as far as cancelling some of them, angering clients and fans, and struggling to respond in time to customer inquiries due to the reduced staff.

Finally, in Belgium, the Mate Xs was expected to launch on the 20th too. However, with the country imposing a lockdown on the 18th of March, and most business having closed down already on the 17th, this has forced the company to rethink its plans. Initially, Huawei had decided to launch their foldable phone in a few select locations, similar to what was done previously with the Mate 30 Pro, with the brand’s store in Brussels being one of these key locations. Another of these stores appears to be Vanden Borre, which has a presentation page for the foldable phone. For now, we do not know when the smartphone manufacturer will launch the Mate Xs in our country, but chances are they’ve also been affected by the current coronavirus events and had to rethink their launch schedule.

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