By Li Panpan

(JW Insights) Apr 23 -- Chinese tech company vivo launched last week its latest flagship foldable smartphone X Fold 2 and X Flip in its latest push to expand its presence in the burgeoning foldables segment.

With an overall market decline of smart phones, vivo's foldable phone launch on April 20 received wide media attention.

The Fold X is a phone that can work as a tablet, while X Flip is Vivo's first clamshell-style flip phone, which will help the Chinese company compete with Samsung's Z Flip foldable smartphone, said a China Daily report.

Huang Tao, vice-president of products at Vivo, said the company’s principle for creating foldable screens is to do flagships and not compromise. For a long time, choosing a foldable screen phone has meant trade-offs and compromises in terms of basic experiences such as performance and battery life. Vivo aims to change that, Huang said.

Vivo said X Flip offers top-of-the-line specifications with a flagship Qualcomm chipset, copious amounts of storage, and a bright and beautiful inner display complemented by one of the largest cover displays.

Global foldable smartphone shipments grew 73 percent year-on-year to 16 million units last year from 9 million units in 2021, and the figure is projected to rise to 26 million units in 2023, according to a report from market research company Counterpoint Research.

Foldable smartphones are still the fastest-growing smartphone product category this year, and the strong growth defies current economic headwinds as the high-end phone market shows resilience and steady demand, according to Counterpoint Research.