Why Aren’t These Trendy Foldable Phones Sold in the United States?
OPPO Find N5, Huawei Mate XT Ultimate, Xiaomi Mix Fold 3, vivo How is this done?
Some Chinese phone brands are banned in the United States or face other restrictions
When it comes to foldables made by Huawei, the company is simply prohibited from doing business with American companies. This doesn’t stop individuals with a Huawei phone from selling them, but U.S. companies are not allowed to do business with Huawei, including selling its phones.
Regarding other high-end foldable phones from OPPO, vivo, Honor and Xiaomi, these brands face other restrictions.
Firstly, there is the customs duty situation which would make their mass sale quite complicated and expensive.
Then you have other problems. For example, it may be downright impossible to activate some Chinese phones, including the latest and greatest foldables, on US carriers.
Verizon and AT&T are pretty strict about which Chinese phone models they allow on their networks. T-Mobile is generally more lenient in this regard, but you can’t be sure until you insert the SIM card or try to register the phone with the carrier.
You may be able to use mobile data, but making calls or using additional features that require the phone to be registered with the carrier may be completely irrelevant.
The best way to check if you can activate a particular phone is to visit the Verizon, T-Mobile, or AT&T website, enter the phone’s IMEI, and see if it is supported. This is far from ideal, to say the least, as it generally requires buy the phone before you can find its IMEI number.
But even if you manage to activate the phone, there’s a good chance it will have issues with 5G networks, since many Chinese phones don’t support the 5G bands popular in the United States, such as b71/n71, n66, or n41.
If 5G coverage where you live is limited to one or more bands, which is the case in many places in the United States outside major metropolitan areas, you may not be able to use 5G at all on a Chinese phone, foldable or not.
While you can switch to a virtual network carrier, which is generally less strict about activating Chinese phones, there’s also no guarantee that this strategy will work, since virtual carriers use cell towers owned by the country’s major carriers, such as Verizon and AT&T.
Now imagine the number of complaints a major retail chain would receive daily if they decided to officially sell Chinese phones.
Ultimately, you can’t find the latest and greatest foldable phones made by Chinese brands in the U.S. because retailers would struggle to turn a profit, while having to navigate a bureaucratic nightmare and deal with customer complaints that many Chinese phones can’t be activated on U.S. cellular networks and don’t support popular cellular bands.
Most Chinese brands avoid the US and focus on other markets instead
Even though trade restrictions and tariffs weren’t in place, US carriers were supporting all Chinese phone models, and retailers were ready to fill their physical and online shelves with cool new Chinese foldables, the fact is that the US market has long been dominated by Apple and Samsung.
You have a few other notable players, such as Google, Motorola, and OnePlus, but as recently as the second quarter of 2025, Apple and Samsung had over 80% of the US phone market.
Gaining a foothold in a market that is more or less a duopoly controlled by two major phone brands is a tall order. This is even more true in the United States, where a Chinese phone seller, or a retailer willing to import Chinese phones, would have to spend a fortune to snatch a small piece of the pie from Samsung and Apple. Taking a piece of Apple’s pie would be particularly difficult, given the popularity of Apple’s proprietary services and apps, like iMessage, in the United States. Besides, there is a lot of money to be made outside the United States.
While the US phone market is expected to reach $61.37 billion in 2025, the Chinese phone market, dominated by Chinese brands, is almost twice as large. Revenue is expected to reach $111.86 billion by the end of the year. The Chinese market alone is so huge that some popular foldables don’t even have international versions, or only receive them months after the Chinese version is released. Valued at $48.22 billion, India is another massive phone market where Chinese phone brands reign supreme.
Another reason why Chinese phone sellers are not investing in the US market is that compared to the Chinese and Indian markets, the US market has basically stagnated. While China and India expect an annual growth rate of 5.31% and 6.89% respectively over the next five years, the mobile market in the United States is expected to grow at just 1.04% annually over the next five years.
Then you have the EU, UK, South America and several large Southeast Asian markets such as Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia. Chinese phones are also very popular in most of these regions.
So why would Chinese brands spend tons of money trying to break into the stagnant US market when they can simply continue business as usual and rake in astronomical wads of cash from the major markets they already dominate?
You can buy Chinese foldables online
Although they’re not officially sold in the United States, you can buy China’s flagship foldables online. There are online retailers operating in Chinese territories, often based in Hong Kong, that offer Chinese flagship phones, including all those trendy foldables like OPPO, vivo, Huawei, Xiaomi and others, to buyers around the world, including the United States.
You’ll have to pay extra for this pleasure, and some models are only available in versions aimed at the Chinese market, but you can get just about any high-end foldable you want if you just look in the right places.
We all know AliExpress, but there are others too. I won’t share these sites here because I haven’t purchased phones from them and I can’t guarantee 100% that they are legit, but a quick Google search will point you in the right direction. Just search Reddit posts discussing ways to buy Chinese phones in the US and you’ll find several popular online retailers.
If you decide to pull the trigger on a Chinese foldable, be sure to do your research. Check which cell bands the foldable phone you want supports, whether it’s compatible with your carrier, what the import process looks like, and how much you’ll have to pay for customs duties. It’s better to go into such an adventure well prepared rather than end up paying high customs fees or finding out that your carrier doesn’t support the phone after you’ve already purchased it.
