In a candid sit down with media at IFA 2019 in Berlin, Huawei's consumer president, Richard Yu, spoke openly about the company's first folding smartphone with a flexible screen, saying that the device will be released next month and a spec bumped model with an upgraded processor will follow shortly after. 

This announcement comes shortly following a report which claimed we might not see the phone until November. 

Yu stated that originally Huawei had planned to launch the phone to the market in August, but then felt with the complications that came with app optimisations for the bigger screen, developers needed more time to make their apps work on the large square display.

The company has since seeded the phone to a few major app developers in the hope that they can make the most of that unfolding screen.  

What's more, the flexible screen part itself is more complicated to produce at a high yield rate with consistent quality, and so getting that process right was also of paramount importance. 

Then there's the testing of the 5G performance, and organising the logistics of releasing a 5G device with network operators that takes time. In short: the Mate X is a little later than originally hoped. 

Huawei Mate X launch date set for next month updated Kirin 990 version following image 2

As well as confirming an October 2019 launch time frame, Richard Yu also stated that Huawei is testing and almost ready to produce a version of the phone powered by the newly announced Kirin 990 processor. 

Unlike current 5G Huawei phones with the Kirin 980 processor, the Kirin 990 has the 5G modem incorporated within the chip's hardware, and not being utilised as a separate chip. 

The plan, he states, is to hopefully release a new version of the Huawei Mate X within a few months, sporting the latest and greatest 5G-capable Kirin processor. 

It had been mooted previously that the Mate X might be one of the first phones to launch with the Kirin 990, but since then it's become apparent that it won't be featuring that particularly processor right at the outset. 

While Huawei hasn't said which exact day it's going to release the phone, we suspect it'll be officially announced soon. Perhaps even during the Mate 30's launch event in a couple of weeks' time.