Xiaomi could be the next company to launch a foldable smartphone

To be fair, a foldable from Xiaomi is not surprising since there have been rumours about it for years, at least two years now.

Rumours aside, Xiaomi is a brand that likes staying “at the forefront of smartphone innovation” and given that Samsung, Motorola and Huawei have all flexed their foldables, there’s only going to be that much of a headstart Xiaomi will be willing to give them. (REUTERS)

Foldable phones are not easy, or cheap, to make. However, the number of smartphone companies adding a foldable smartphone to their roster just keeps growing. And if TechRadar's report is anything to go by, there's evidence that Xiaomi could be the next smartphone company to launch a foldable smartphone.

A code spotted in Xiaomi's MIUI by XDA Developers indicated that the groundwork is being laid for a foldable device that has the code name - Cetus. Folding capabilities of this Cetus are mentioned numerous times with respect to the device display.

The code points to the fact that we might be looking at device running Xiaomi's proprietary MIUI on top of Android 11, with a 108MP primary shooter on the back and with a Snapdragon processor. There is no information about which Snapdragon SoC this is going to be, but it will probably be one of the high-end ones.

For now, there is no other information available about this device, no mention of its size or potential launch date. But so far, this is the biggest hint we have about a foldable phone from Xiaomi and that it might be arriving at some point in time next year.

To be fair, a foldable from Xiaomi is not surprising since there have been rumours about it for years, at least two years now.

Rumours aside, Xiaomi is a brand that likes staying “at the forefront of smartphone innovation” and given that Samsung, Motorola and Huawei have all flexed their foldables, there's only going to be that much of a headstart Xiaomi will be willing to give them.

Some time earlier this year, there was some buzz about Xiaomi patenting a device with a screen that bends and design-wise it was much like the Huawei Mate Xs. However, the finished product might look nothing like that.

And given the mention of Android 11, Xiaomi is possibly going to launch this foldable device sometime in 2021.