Xiaomi 18 Fold appears behind glass at IFA, China launch set for September 7

If you have been waiting to see what a Xiaomi foldable running Xiaomi's own silicon actually looks like, this is the first real look. The company put a Xiaomi 18 Fold on display at IFA 2026, days before it goes official, and Xiaomi has confirmed the phone launches in China on September 7.

It was behind glass. Reporters who saw it at the show could not pick it up, which limits what anyone can say about hinge feel or weight, but the shape came through clearly enough: this is the short and wide "passport" style foldable, in a bright cherry red.

The cover screen measures 5.38 inches and has an odd asymmetry to it, with the left side squared off while the corners on the right are rounded. Inside is a 7.58-inch panel with a punch-hole cutout in the top right corner for the selfie camera. From the show floor the crease could not be made out under most angles, though a phone under glass and under trade show lighting is not the same test as one in your hands.

There is a second front-facing camera on the cover, and three cameras on the back sitting in a visor.

The part Xiaomi is willing to talk about is the silicon. Xiaomi says the 18 Fold is the first flagship smartphone powered by its next-generation XRing O3 chip, and observers at IFA described the performance on show as promising. Xiaomi has also confirmed ChangXin Memory Technologies' next-generation LPDDR6 RAM, rated at speeds up to 12,800 Mbps.

The foldable is one small part of a very large stand. This is Xiaomi's IFA debut, and the company took more than 3,300 square meters of exhibition space, its largest standalone overseas exhibition to date, filling it with over 380 products under a "Human x Car x Home" banner that covers phones, smart home gear, cars and AI. The 18 Fold sits in the middle of all of it.

Next week fills in the rest.