High-stakes battle: How Samsung, Huawei are taking on Apple in pricing game

Apple's rivals have co-opted the company's strategy of trying to squeeze more cash out of stagnating unit sales, pushing the price of some phones well above what many people would pay for a laptop

Samsung Electronics Co. and Huawei Technologies Co. watched as Apple Inc. first priced a mass market smartphone at more than $1,000 -- and now have upped the ante with new models at almost double that cost.

Apple kicked off the trend in 2017 with the iPhone X. Its latest premium iPhones, the XS and XS Max, cost as much as $1,450. This past week, Samsung and Huawei doubled the bet, pricing their folding phones at $1,980 and about $2,600, respectively. That makes the folding devices the most expensive phones to date, excluding low-volume, jewelry-like phones from companies like Vertu that