Xiaomi launches first flip phone at just over $800, with a $70 portable printer

BEIJING — Xiaomi on Friday launched its first flip phone with the ability to print pictures instantly using a separately sold portable printer.

The Mix Flip starts at 5,999 yuan ($825), the company announced.

Preorders start Friday with deliveries beginning Tuesday.

The portable printer costs 499 yuan ($68), including photo paper.

The Chinese company also released the latest version of its folding phone, the Mix Fold 4, at the same price as the prior version at 8,999 yuan.

At the product launch, Xiaomi founder Lei Jun described how the Mix Fold 4 could handle simultaneous translation with one language on each side of the screen. But he did not otherwise emphasize artificial intelligence capabilities.

He also warned that supplies of the portable printer were tight.The company in late March released its first electric car, the SU7 sedan, at a cheaper price than Tesla’s Model 3.Lei said as of Friday that cumulative deliveries had exceeded 30,000 vehicles, and that he expected to deliver 100,000 cars by November, a month earlier than previously announced.The company last month doubled the shifts to 16 hours a day at its factory in southern Beijing to meet higher demand, according to a staff member.

The factory has about 2,000 human workers and about 700 robots.

Lei said updates to the SU7 in August would allow it to be voice controlled from the outside.

He spent the first part of the three-hour product event giving his fifth annual speech.

This year’s speech played up how U.S. sanctions on the company in January 2021 prompted Xiaomi’s board of directors to ask Lei to think about options, such as building a car, in the event they could no longer sell smartphones.

He said after much consideration he decided to do so, and warned the board it would require $10 billion in spending. He said he turned down early investment offers from venture capitalists that valued a standalone car business at $10 billion.

Lei said he tried driving more than 170 different cars in three years, and even got a race car license along with more than 100 company executives and engineers.

“Three years ago an accident allowed me to join such an interesting industry,” Lei said in Mandarin, translated by CNBC.

Xiaomi appealed the U.S. sanctions in 2021 and was removed from the blacklist in May that year.

Lei announced Friday that Xiaomi aimed in the next decade to have the fastest four-door electric car to drive the Nurburgring race track in Germany, with tests of a new SU7 race car version starting in October.

Geely-owned Zeekr in October 2023 launched a limited F1-inspired version of its 001 electric car.