India, Sept. 8 -- Xiaomi has officially announced its new book-style foldable smartphone, called the Xiaomi 18 Fold, with prices starting at CNY 10,999 in China. The launch comes two days before Apple's September 9 event, highlighting the competitive battle in the ultra-premium smartphone space.

The device has an IPX8 water-resistance rating and is powered by Xiaomi's proprietary XRing O3 processing platform. Xiaomi describes it as its highest-positioned smartphone yet.

The Xiaomi 18 Fold debuts across multiple memory tiers, bringing next-generation LPDDR6 RAM to the top-spec models:

12GB RAM + 256GB storage: CNY 10,999, approximately Rs.1,54,800

12GB RAM + 512GB storage: CNY 11,999, approximately Rs.1,68,850

16GB RAM + 512GB storage...