OPPO Find N5, Huawei Mate XT Ultimate, Xiaomi Mix Fold 3, vivo X Fold5, Honor Magic V5 — these are some of the best foldable phones on the market, but you can’t get them in the United States, at least not officially. How come?
Some Chinese Phone Brands Are Banned in the U.S. or Face Other Restrictions
When it comes to foldables made by Huawei, the company’s outright banned from doing business with U.S. companies. This doesn’t prevent individuals who own a Huawei phone from selling it, but companies from the United States are prevented from doing any sort of business with Huawei, which includes selling its phones.
Regarding other high-end foldable phones from OPPO, vivo, Honor, and Xiaomi, those brands face other restrictions.
Firstly, there’s the situation with tariffs that would make selling them en masse quite convoluted and expensive.
Credit: Huawei
Then you’ve got other issues. For instance, it can be flat-out impossible to activate certain Chinese phones, including the latest and greatest foldables, on U.S. 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 know for sure until you insert the SIM card or try registering the phone with the carrier.
You might be able to use mobile data, but making calls or using extra features that require the phone to be registered with the carrier might be completely out of the picture.
The best way to check whether you can activate a particular phone is to visit Verizon’s, T-Mobile’s, or AT&T’s website, enter the phone’s IMEI, and see whether it’s supported. This is less than ideal, to say the least, because you usually have to buy the phone before you can find its IMEI number.
But even if you do manage to activate the phone, there’s a good chance it will have issues with 5G networks, since many Chinese phones don’t support 5G bands that are popular in the U.S. such as b71/n71, n66, or n41.
If 5G coverage where you live is limited to just one or a couple of bands, which is the case in many places in the U.S. located outside of large metropolitan areas, you might not be able to use 5G at all on a Chinese phone, foldable or not.
Credit: Lucas Gouveia / How-To Geek | Stefano Carnevali / Shutterstock
While you can switch to a virtual network operator, which are usually less strict when it comes to activating Chinese phones, there’s no guarantee this strategy will work either, since virtual operators use cellular towers owned by the country’s major carriers, such as Verizon and AT&T.
Now just imagine the number of complaints a massive retail chain would receive on a daily basis if it decided to officially sell Chinese phones.
At the end of the day, 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, all while having to navigate a bureaucratic nightmare and deal with customer complaints over the fact that many Chinese phones can’t be activated on U.S. cellular networks and lack support for popular cellular bands.
Most Chinese Brands Avoid the U.S. and Focus On Other Markets Instead
Even if trade restrictions and tariffs weren’t in place, U.S. carriers supported every Chinese phone model out there, and retailers were ready to fill their physical and online shelves with cool new Chinese foldables, the fact is that the U.S. market has long been dominated by Apple and Samsung.
You’ve got a few other notable players, such as Google, Motorola, and OnePlus, but as recently as Q2 2025, Apple and Samsung held more than 80% of the U.S. phone market.
Credit: Honor
Creating a foothold in a market that’s more or less a duopoly controlled by two massive phone brands is a very tall order. Even more so in the U.S. where a Chinese phone vendor, or a retailer ready to import Chinese phones, would have to spend a fortune only to snag a tiny slice of the pie from Samsung and Apple. Taking a slice of the pie from Apple would be especially difficult, given the popularity of Apple-exclusive services and apps, like iMessage, in the U.S. Besides, there’s a ton of money to be made outside the United States.
While the U.S. phone market is projected to reach $61.37 billion in 2025, the Chinese phone market, dominated by Chinese brands, is almost twice that size. It’s projected to achieve $111.86 billion in revenue by the end of the year. The Chinese market alone is so massive that some popular foldables don’t even have international versions, or only receive them months after the release of the version for the Chinese. Valued at $48.22 billion, India is another massive phone market where Chinese phone brands rule supreme.
Another reason for Chinese phone vendors not to invest in the American market is that, compared to the Chinese and Indian markets, the U.S. market has pretty much plateaued. While China and India are expecting to see an annual growth rate of 5.31% and 6.89% over the next five years, respectively, the United States mobile market is expected to grow at a yearly rate of only 1.04% over the next half a decade.
Credit: OPPO
Then you’ve got the EU, UK, South American, and several large Southeast Asian markets such as Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, and Malaysia. Chinese phones are quite popular in most of those regions too.
So why would Chinese brands spend tons of cash trying to penetrate the stagnant U.S. market when they can simply carry on business as usual and rake in astronomical wads of cash in the major markets they already dominate?
You Can Buy Chinese Foldables Online
Although they are not officially sold in the United States, you can buy flagship Chinese foldables online. There are online retailers operating within Chinese territories—often based in Hong Kong—offering Chinese flagship phones, including all those trendy foldables from the likes of OPPO, vivo, Huawei, Xiaomi, and others to buyers from around the world, including those in the U.S.
You will have to pay a premium for that pleasure, and some of the models are only available in versions for the Chinese market, but you can get pretty much any high-end foldable you want if you just search at the right places.
Credit: Xiaomi
We all know about AliExpress, but there are others too. I won’t share those sites here because I haven’t purchased phones off them and cannot 100% guarantee they’re legit, but a quick Google search will steer you the right way. Just search for Reddit posts discussing ways to purchase Chinese phones in the United States, and you’ll find more than a couple of popular online retailers.
If you decide to pull the trigger on a Chinese foldable, be sure to do your research. Check which cellular 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 need to pay for customs duties. It’s better to embark on such an adventure fully prepared than end up paying hefty customs fees, or finding out your carrier doesn’t support the phone after you’ve already purchased it.
