Vivo teased its forthcoming entry into the growing foldable smartphone market, with the challenger manufacturer set to unveil its offering at an online launch next month.

On its official page on Chinese social media platform Weibo, Vivo announced it would present Vivo X Fold on 11 April with the event marketed as heralding the “arrival of the folding screen 2.0 era”.

The company provided no detail on the handset itself or where it would be available, simply offering a promotional video featuring footage of a foldable closing and stating it would be an “extremely polished, elegant debut”.

With the launch Vivo will be the latest in a spate of devicemakers traditionally occupying the mid-tier of the market to move into the foldable segment.

In the last 12 months Xiaomi, Oppo and Honor have all presented devices with flexible screens to join Samsung, Huawei and Lenovo in offering the alternative smartphone form factor.

In statistics released earlier this month covering foldable sales during 2021, analyst house Omdia reported a 309 per cent year-on-year growth with 9 million handsets sold worldwide. Almost 90 per cent of these were sold in H2.

Samsung dominated Omdia’s manufacturer charts for the segment, though it was the only player apart from Lenovo with its revamped Moto Razr and Huawei to offer devices sporting the form factor for the entire 12 months, with the latter hampered by US sanctions.