Written by / Financial World Weekly Author Ma Ce
Edited / Zhou Luping
The mobile phone industry has not been new for a long time, until this year, each family began to launch folding screen mobile phones.
It looks very chicken ribs, in addition to showing off, it is difficult to think of too many use scenarios and pain points needed. It is actually very expensive, the cheapest is several thousand, and the expensive one sells for one or two million yuan, blocking the vast majority of ordinary consumers. Therefore, its sales are not much, and the global sales volume is only one million units.
However, all this has not stopped the enthusiasm of mobile phone manufacturers, especially this year, the folding screen mobile phone industry is extremely lively.
The latest folding screen player is OPPO. On December 15, OPPO launched its first folding screen mobile phone Find N, with a pricing box set at less than 8,000 yuan. Prior to this, Xiaomi's folding screen phone MIX Flod has been released, and Huawei and Samsung, as the forerunners, have already had products on the market as early as two or three years ago. And the remaining vivo and glory are not willing to be left behind, and there is already a release plan for folding screen mobile phones.
Even Apple has news that it is studying folding screen phones and will release it in two years. But Apple's strategy has always been conservative, and many years ago, there were rumors that Apple would cancel the iPhone's bangs. But to this day, the bangs are still there.
At present, the common goal of domestic mobile phone brands is high-end. But how to break through the high-end price segment and avoid homogeneous competition? In the past, everyone competed with high-end chips, the number of cameras and camera capabilities, the size and refresh rate of the screen, but these aspects are not enough to open the gap with the opponent, and in addition to high-end chips, other technologies and functions have long been applied on low-end models, and it is difficult to support domestic mobile phone brands to go to the high-end.
As a result, the folding screen has become the best competition field, although most folding screen mobile phones are still in the stage of losing money and making money. But in the mature and inward mobile phone industry, there may be no better story to tell than the folding screen.
Who's using the folding screen?
Mobile phone dealer Wu Tian used the folding screen for a period of time under the "Amway" of his peers this year. He wasn't too impressed with folding screen phones. But friends in the circle often sit together to socialize and chat, and at the dinner table of each party, the folding screen mobile phone can always see several. These owners of the mobile phone business, when talking about folding screen mobile phones, often mention that it is "convenient to read documents".
Wu Tian also bought one. Looking at reports on a large screen is indeed an advantage, but in addition, for him, other uses to enhance perception are not obvious. "Probably just added a little bit of the feeling of showing off." It didn't take long for him to switch back to his previous Mate 40 Porsche.
Showing off is an important selling point for it. At the press conference of the OPPO folding screen mobile phone, Liu Zuohu, chief product officer, took out the folding screen mobile phone on the stage, showed it in a circle, closed it, and put it back in his pocket, saying: "You must not have experienced this feeling of handsomeness." ”
Folding can make the mobile phone achieve a large screen, but in fact, if you only pursue a large screen, you can buy a Pad, and the price will be much cheaper. The folding machine wants to play the role of a pad that can be carried into the pocket, but the problem is that the stacked mobile phone is generally very heavy, and the current flagship machine weighs mostly within 200g, but the folding screen mobile phone is close to 300g.
In order to fold, hundreds of metal buckles are required at the hinge, plus two screens inside and outside, and the fuselage is aggravated and not easy to carry. Years of mobile phone sales intuition told Wu Tian, "The price is too expensive, the fuselage is too thick, and it is not enough to pull the entire market (starting volume)." ”
Like Wu Tian, people who are not optimistic about the current folding form presentation effect still account for the majority. The potential users of folding screen mobile phones are business people, not only because this group has enough spending power, but also because the folding screen can meet the needs of these people to handle business to a certain extent, including watching news, reports, documents and PPT.
Liu Bo, president of OPPO China, also found that many mobile phone channel bosses use folding screen mobile phones, and these people read various reports every day. The big screen actually alleviates the same pain points that he has in his work to a certain extent. He also gave one to his mother, specifically for the elderly to watch the news.
However, it may not be enough to meet these.
Mobile phone manufacturers still need to give a good reason to prove that folding screen mobile phones are not folded for the sake of folding. Although the folding screen is considered to have obvious advantages in office and large-screen entertainment.
But Yiwen Wu, a senior analyst at market analysis firm Strategy Analytics, feels that there is still a lack of "killer apps." In other words, the folding screen mobile phone is a form innovation, but in the use experience, it has not yet shown irreplaceable value.
"It's the ability to solve the needs that defines the high end, not that you sell a very expensive phone that looks very high end." Whether from software or hardware, the above dealers also believe that folding screen mobile phones still need a big breakthrough in order to truly reflect the attractiveness of the retail side.
The place where the current folding screen mobile phone can "force death obsessive-compulsive disorder" is the deep crease in the middle of the screen. This is the point where flexible OLED screens cannot be truly solved in technology, and manufacturers can only do as much as possible to alleviate it.
Various problems have led to consumers' enthusiasm for folding screens not being high, and even showing signs of fading. When Huawei launched the first generation of folding screen MateX, although the price was as high as 16999 yuan, under the influence of Huawei's strong brand heat and very limited supply, the price of this machine was once speculated to more than 50,000 yuan, and each time it was sold out in seconds.
But today, prices have fallen significantly. The market price of Huawei's folding screen mobile phone is currently barely the same as the official pricing. And Samsung and Xiaomi's folding machine, the market price suffered a rapid decline. According to a dealer, the listing price of 9999 yuan for Xiaomi folding machine has broken within two weeks and is currently only six or seven thousand yuan.
In addition to the use scenarios, an important obstacle faced by folding screen mobile phones is the application ecology. Folding screens still have a long way to go in software adaptation.
At present, various manufacturers have not yet reached a unified folding method and screen size, and a hundred flowers are blooming. In addition, the folding screen mobile phone market is small, and software developers actually have no incentive to actively adapt to different manufacturers' products.
If such a situation cannot be broken, it will fall into a non-solving cycle. Software companies do not adapt, folding screen mobile phone experience will not be too good, sales will not go up. There is no sales volume, and the problem of adaptation cannot be fundamentally solved. This is also why OPPO announced an ecological support plan with an investment amount of 100 million yuan as soon as it came up.
An employee of a mobile phone manufacturer revealed to the "Finance world" weekly that the existing folding screen mobile phone is still a niche product, and the adaptation of many applications still needs to rely on "the boss to brush his face", and user education and market cultivation still have a long way to go.
Lose money and make money
The folding screen is not a model with running volume.
A dealer with dozens of Huawei stores told Caijing Tianxia Weekly that the weekly sales of folding screen mobile phones in his stores are only 8-10 in total. By contrast, other models sell hundreds of units a week.
A small amount means that the cost of sharing is high. The cost of the folding screen mainly comes from the flexible screen and the hinge that realizes the folding. According to Omdia's previous research data, the current price of folding screens is between $150 and $250, which translates into rmb between 1,000 and 1,700 yuan. The price of a conventional flexible OLED screen is around $80, and the price difference between the two is far from the same. Often mainstream brands will have their own size customization needs, and the investment will be more.
According to the "Finance world" weekly, in order to jointly create such a customized flexible OLED screen with Samsung, oppo's investment amount has reached hundreds of millions of yuan.
The cost of the screen can also be seen in the repair price. The official screen change price of Huawei MateX2 is 3580 yuan for the first time, and the price of the second time is 7500 yuan, and the price of the screen alone is higher than that of most flagship mobile phones.
Off-screen, the realization of a folding hinge also requires a significant cost. Earlier, Tianfeng International analyst Guo Mingxi revealed that the hinge hinge of Samsung and Huawei folding mobile phones cost about $40. Oppo Chief Product Officer Liu Zuohu provided a figure: OPPO Find N is equipped with a teardrop hinge, and the single cost reaches $100.
Folding screen mobile phone investment is huge, but the market demand can not be guaranteed. According to IDC statistics, the global shipment of folding screen mobile phones in 2020 is only about 1.947 million units, accounting for only 0.15% of the overall shipments of smartphones. Among them, the absolute hegemony of the market is Samsung, and the share has reached more than 90%. Huawei took a single-digit share and ranked second. The combined share of the two manufacturers has exceeded 97%.
Not to mention, how many shares can the newly entered manufacturers take from the two hands. Whether the folding screen really has large-scale rigid demand has not been verified.
Sun Yanbiao, chairman of Rising Sun Big Data, relayed to the "Finance and Economics" Weekly that an executive of Huaxing Optoelectronics said that the yield rate of domestic flexible folding screens has not come up, mainly because domestic mobile phone manufacturers currently have low procurement of flexible OLED screens, and the market has no demand, so it lacks the investment power to improve the yield rate. "If demand is scaled up, yield improvement is not a problem at all."
Wu Tian feels that if it is only for the large-screen experience, it is also a cost of 10,000 yuan, and more people may still be inclined to choose to buy a straight flagship plus a high-end tablet.
"To do the demand for large screens, you have to solve the battery life, thickness, weight, these core problems can be solved OK, otherwise the folding screen mobile phone can only be regarded as a novelty toy." In his view, the brains of domestic manufacturers flocking to the folding screen may be essentially doing a commercial adventure.
Liu Bo, president of OPPO China, admitted to the Weekly Magazine of Finance and Economics that it is not easy to make money on folding screen mobile phones, technology still needs to be broken, and market demand has yet to be developed. "To be honest, we really want to open up this market." But he estimates that at least two or three generations of product input and market verification will be necessary before it is possible to talk about making money.
Huawei's Mate X series folding screen, although priced at nearly 20,000 yuan, has been in a state of loss in the early stage. Yu Chengdong, CEO of Huawei's consumer business, revealed in April 2020 that Huawei had already lost $60 to 70 million on folding screen phones. According to the "Finance world" weekly, Huawei is also doing this year, and the Mate X2 generation has generally maintained a balanced state.
If you take into account the huge R&D investment earlier, the return time will only be longer.
"Finance and Economics" weekly learned from informed sources that the Huawei P series folding screen mobile phone released at the end of this month will be equipped with a 4G chip, which adopts a design similar to the Samsung Galaxy Z, which is comparable to the size of ordinary mobile phones after fully open, and the price is also about eight or nine thousand yuan.
However, compared with the MateX series models, this new product named after P is not too optimistic. In the industry, Huawei's folding screen is called a "resource machine", and only core dealers are eligible to pick up the goods, and the number is also strictly limited. These machines are earned, and they often need to sell some less popular machines when picking up goods, "and the P series folding screen may face the embarrassment of falling below the issue price." The above-mentioned insider said.
Everything is for the high end
Behind the domestic brands flocking to the folding screen is the need for high-end differentiated competition.
According to a mobile phone manufacturer responsible for strategy, the arrival of the folding screen trend actually reflects the bottleneck of mobile phone development. In the form of a straight board of high-end mobile phones, Apple has become an insurmountable mountain.
In recent years, the computing power of mobile phone chips has increased by leaps and bounds, but it has been subject to screen area, resulting in mobile phone computing power can only overflow to the camera. With the improvement of the image level of the entire industry, the homogenization is becoming more and more obvious, and the folding screen mobile phone has become the next computing power overflow path explored by many mobile phone manufacturers.
However, in the view of the above-mentioned people, the folding screen can only be regarded as a high-end differentiated product, which can increase the market attention of the impact on the high-end, but cannot fundamentally enhance the success rate of the impact on the high-end.
Sun Yanbiao's feeling is that this year's sales of China's smartphones are only 300 million, which is close to 200 million compared with the peak period. There are only about 1.1 billion units in the world, and the data of 1.3-1.4 billion units maintained in the past many years is also significantly lower. "The market environment is bad and the competitive environment is even worse."
The wave of 5G replacements expected by the industry has not come as violently as imagined. At a time when the entire mobile phone industry lacked revolutionary innovation, Apple demonstrated a strong brand dominance.
Sun Yanbiao said that the iPhone 13 has no competitors, which directly increased Apple's market share in China to a historic 31% in October. In his view, the folding screen can bring about a difference in form, and domestic mobile phones seek a breakthrough in this, which is more of a market-level force. "Launching a folding screen mobile phone before Apple is the only way for domestic brands."
Among the phones that currently have wholesale prices of more than $600, Apple and Samsung maintain an absolute lead in the global market. In the domestic market, more than 8,000 yuan of the share, Apple took more than 90%.
The folding machine is considered to be the core of next year's domestic high-end competition, but preemptive release does not mean that it can take the lead. Looking at the attempts of domestic mobile phone manufacturers in hardware in recent years, some explorations have been successful, such as fingerprints under the screen, full screens have been popularized; but some explorations are not satisfactory, such as sliding screen mobile phones, lifting cameras, it is difficult to see such designs on new products nowadays.
"The future form of mobile phones may no longer be the physical form of mobile phones now, and should not be limited by physics." Yuanhao, an engineer at a screen manufacturer, told Caijing Tianxia Weekly that if it is the pursuit of large-screen demand, holographic projection technology may be more representative of future trends.
Some people think that folding screens may become something that completely revolutionizes the industry, but there are also people who hold different views and opinions. Although the outside world is rumored that realme is also preparing folding screen products, Xu Qi, the brand's President of China, admitted to Caijing Tianxia Weekly that folding screen mobile phones are not realme's key direction, "mobile phones need to pursue large screens, but not necessarily this form."
As a mature market, innovative exploration has become the only way for brands to go to high-end. Almost all mainstream manufacturers have released or are about to release folding screen products, and the upstream and downstream of the supply chain are responding positively. Folding screen mobile phones are about to become another competition and the direction of the industry, but it may be difficult to reproduce the glory of the "flip phone" style of that year.
OPPO is well aware of this. Liu Bo told Caijing Tianxia Weekly that folding screen mobile phones can get some share from the high-end mobile phone market. "It's hard to split up half of it." He gave a relatively optimistic number, "two or three percent."
For domestic brands that are eager to make breakthroughs in the high-end market, the short-term significance of folding screen mobile phones is not to make money, but more to cultivate the user's brand mentality.
According to a mobile phone dealer in Shanghai, the folding screen is set in batches of production capacity, manufacturers do not care about sales at all, and do not expect to make money through the folding screen mobile phone, "if you can pull the user's brand mentality up, the value will be realized."
This article is originally produced by AI Finance and Economics, an account of Caijing Tianxia Weekly, without permission, please do not reprint it on any channel or platform. Violators will be prosecuted.
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