Chinese smartphone vendor Oppo has updated its Find N series of foldable smartphones with a new hinge that makes the screen crease “virtually imperceptible”, the company said.

The new Find N6 also features a substantial price increase, a common factor for smartphone makers this year due to spiralling memory prices.

The device, launched in China and internationally on Tuesday, is priced from 9,999 yuan (£1,087) to 11,999 yuan, an increase of 1,000 over the Find N5 released last February.

“You may all know that memory is more expensive than gold now,” said Oppo senior vice president and chief product officer Pete Lau at a launch event.

The device is 8.93 mm (0.35 in) when folded, weighs 225 grams and runs on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip, which supports AI and multitasking features.

The Find N6 competes in China with foldable market leader Huawei, which held 71 percent of the domestic foldable market last year, according to IDC.

Honor was second with 9 percent, followed by Vivo with 5 percent, while Oppo and Samsung both had 4.3 percent of the segment.

Smartphones are expected to see their biggest-ever market decline of 13 percent this year due to memory prices, dropping to 1.12 billion units, IDC said last month.

But foldables are expected to grow 30 percent, IDC predicted, largely fuelled by Apple’s expected foldable iPhone, which the research firm said could take 22 percent of the foldable market by units and 34 percent by value in its first year.