(Yicai) Sept. 5 -- Huawei Technologies, the first Chinese brand to ship more than 10 million foldable smartphones, has released its next-generation triple-foldable handset powered by the Kirin 9020 processor, marking the first public mention of the chip at one of its product launch events in four years.

The Mate XTs Ultimate Design comes with HarmonyOS 5, the latest version of Huawei’s own operating system, and is priced at CNY17,999 (USD2,520), the Shenzhen-based company said at yesterday’s launch.

HarmonyOS 5 is reshaping the mobile ecosystem by enabling cross-platform integration. At the launch, Huawei demonstrated that that personal computer apps such as WPS Office, Alibaba's workplace messaging app DingTalk, and ByteDance's work collaboration software Feishu can now run seamlessly on HarmonyOS 5 devices such as the Mate XTs.

“We used to use phones to deal with short information, tablets to read, and PCs to work, but now we can do all these whenever we want on the Mate XTs, an evolution of the productivity experience,” Zhang Yonghao, who is in charge of Feishu's instant messaging product, said at the event.

This was achieved thanks to an adaptive interface layout framework built on the HarmonyOS, Zhang noted.

As a full-scenario operating system, HarmonyOS makes interconnection and interoperability across multiple devices possible. With the native Harmony framework and developer toolchain maturing, more leading app vendors are fully adapting to it. HarmonyOS 5 is already being installed on phones, tablets, PCs, smart screens, and wearables, with more devices to come.

More than 14 million devices use HarmonyOS 5, and the configuration of foldable phones will likely help expand the OS ecosystem, noted Richard Yu, Huawei executive director and chairman of its consumer business group.

China's foldable phone shipments rose 13 percent to almost 5 million units in the six months ended June 30 from a year ago, with 3.74 million being Huawei handsets, according to the latest data from International Data Corporation.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Martin Kadiev