Folding screen phones came earlier than expected.
The competition in dimensions such as full-screen, off-screen camera, and moving image has not receded, and major manufacturers have plunged into the competition of folding screen mobile phones.
Data from Strategy Analytics shows that the folding screen mobile phone market size is about 6.5 million units in 2021, and it is expected to reach 13 million units in 2022 and 37 million units in 2023.
After many rounds of product iteration, folding screen mobile phones have grown from toddlers to teenagers who are about to show their skills. Driven by the increasingly mature industrial chain and the growing consumer demand, the folding screen mobile phone market is about to explode.
Why do manufacturers gather in the folding screen mobile phone arena? In the competition, who plays the role of leader, and who can laugh to the end?
Leader in mobile phone innovation
How long has it been since the mobile phone industry had such an exciting innovation? After the innovation benchmark Apple fell into a toothpaste update and Android manufacturers fell into homogeneous competition, it is increasingly difficult for people to expect mobile phone innovation.
Once, domestic manufacturers followed Apple's footsteps, and later came to the front in innovation, Huawei led the era of photography, Xiaomi opened the era of full screen, and OnePlus took the lead in using high brush screens, but the market share of high-end mobile phones was still firmly occupied by Apple. This time, they have always wanted to impact the high-end, once again brandishing the spear of innovation, with the folding screen as a breakthrough.
At the earliest, the folding screen is just a "game" of upstream panel manufacturers (TCL, Royole, Samsung) and one or two head mobile phone manufacturers (Samsung, Huawei, Motorola), starting in 2021, more and more domestic mobile phone manufacturers participate in this competition.
Especially in the two months of late 2021 and early 2022, the "stage" is more lively, you sing I debuted, OPPO, Huawei, glory have released new folding screen mobile phones - as of now, only vivo and Apple are the world's main mobile phone manufacturers, but there is news that the two will launch folding screen products in the first quarter of this year and next year.
| folding screen mobile phones released by various manufacturers before 2022
"Folding mobile phones open the '3.0 era' of smart phones," Guojin Securities wrote in the research report. If Nokia has opened the era of physical keyboard smartphones and Apple has opened the era of full-touch screen smartphones, then the folding screen mobile phones launched by Samsung and Huawei since 2019 have opened the "smartphone 3.0 era".
Innovation comes in different forms, from groundbreaking innovations like the Watt steam engine to improved innovations like ford assembly lines, and some innovations for the sake of innovation. For the mobile phone industry, which has slowed down for many years, the current is a critical period for mobile phone manufacturers to become the leader of the "smart phone 3.0 era", who leads the trend at this time, who will lead the next era.
Indeed, domestic mobile phone manufacturers are expected to overtake in this era. Looking back at the products released by domestic mobile phone manufacturers over the years, they are exploring different positioning and directions.
Xiaomi took the lead last year, the MIX Fold released in March uses an 8.01-inch AMOLED foldable flexible screen, the form is left and right folding, the hinge design is relatively young, the crease is obvious, and the outer screen is too narrow and inconvenient to use. There is news that its second-generation folding screen mobile phone will be in the city soon.
Huawei, OPPO, and Honor have successively launched folding screen mobile phones. The Find N released by OPPO will sell for less than 8,000 yuan (from 7699 yuan), using Seiko pseudo-vertebral hinge technology, with shallow creases but a slightly wider distribution area; the ratio after the screen is expanded is 8.4:9, close to square, and the effect of watching videos using the inner screen is discounted.
Huawei first released folding screen products in 2019, following the previous two products using left and right folding, left and right folding, the P50 Pocket released in December last year and the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip3 have similar ideas, using the form of up and down folding, folding only half the length of the normal mobile phone, shaped like a makeup box.
The Magic V released by Honor on January 10 this year adopts the idea of left and right inward folding, and the self-developed droplet suspension hinge technology not only reduces the crease, gets rid of the "thick" problem, but also takes into account the use experience of the inner and outer screens.
Within a month, the industry has welcomed three folding screen mobile phones, so who is the leader in this wave of folding screens that symbolize innovation? Historical experience proves that the most successful are not necessarily "pioneers", but necessarily "integrators".
Who holds the bull's ear
Seemingly simple folding, but it is a concentrated embodiment of the upstream and downstream innovation capabilities of the industry.
As Fang Fei, president of the glory mobile phone product line, said, the current development of the mobile phone industry comes from the promotion of consumer demand, the drive of technological innovation, and also from the traction of the industry's leading manufacturers, "In fact, the entire industrial chain of folding screens is gradually maturing, followed by a process of rapid cost decline."
In the early days of the folding screen, in the AMOLED flexible screen, flexible cover and other important components, due to the low yield and high cost, the price of the model at that time was also pushed up to more than 15,000 yuan. Recently, with the overcoming of technical problems in these key components and components, the product yield has gradually increased, coupled with the increase in downstream product demand, resulting in a gradual reduction in costs.
For example, on the flexible OLED screen, in recent years, domestic manufacturers led by BOE have accelerated their seizure of the market, and the global market share will reach 13.2% in 2020. The concerted efforts of domestic manufacturers at the upstream and downstream industrial chains of folding screens have finally led to the explosion of Chinese brands on folding screens, and Huawei Mate X2 and Honor Magic V are cooperating with BOE.
The hinge, another core component of the folding screen, is also the largest cost, which can account for about 10% of the terminal retail price. At present, Chinese mainland manufacturers have a layout on the hinge, and can do a lower cost, the middle shaft mechanical bearing Korean supply chain manufacturers need 150-200 US dollars, domestic manufacturers can do about 100 US dollars.
| some manufacturers folding screen mobile phone hinge layout
From the early 15,000 yuan or more, to today's less than 8,000 yuan, the decline in price is also a proof of the gradual maturity of the folding screen mobile phone industry chain. At the moment when various mobile phone manufacturers are concentrating their efforts, the folding screen mobile phone supply chain is at a critical node from growth to maturity, and how to help it step through this node is what the upstream supply chain and downstream mobile phone manufacturers are doing.
Among them, the role of mobile phone manufacturers is to transmit the needs of downstream consumers to the upstream, so that folding screen technology has a clearer development direction, and the second is to cooperate with the supply chain to achieve pain points and functional innovation based on user needs from all aspects of software and hardware.
So, what is the most obvious pain point in the current folding screen market?
"People who have used folding screen mobile phones in the past have the most feedback that it is relatively thick, resulting in a control experience that is sometimes not so good, which is the core pain point seen at the consumer level." Fang Fei analyzed. The data on the black cat complaint platform shows that consumer complaints focus on screen creases, cracks, hinge glue, poor signal, and large power consumption.
As a key component that affects the user experience, hinge has become an area that upstream and downstream manufacturers are conquering. As Fang Fei introduced the hinge design of the Honor Magic V, the hinge is composed of more than 200 parts, and the requirements for three-dimensional assembly accuracy reach the level of 0.01mm, which needs to be guaranteed by industrial design and production mechanism.
Judging from several folding screen products recently, the mobile phone manufacturers closest to consumers carry out hinge self-research from the perspective of user demand, and then hand it over to the upstream supply chain for production and manufacturing. From the 17.1mm of the Samsung Z Flip3, the 17.2mm of the Xiaomi MIX Fold, to the 14.7mm of the Huawei Mate X2, it reflects the different technical strengths of mobile phone manufacturers.
The Glory Magic V released in January is to launch a suspended water droplet hinge through self-research, so that the "water droplets" at the bend of the mobile phone can sag freely, the screen bend reaches the industry's highest limit, and the Magic V has thus achieved the thinnest in the industry, folding up to a thickness of 14.3mm, and 6.7mm after unfolding.
In the end, under the cooperation between mobile phone manufacturers such as Glory and the upstream supply chain, we will solve the pain points existing in the folding screen, improve the user experience, promote the increase of mobile phone shipments, and promote the cost reduction and innovation evolution of the industrial chain. It is foreseeable that in the future, folding screen mobile phones will have better quality and lower prices, and they will be one step closer to the goal of "daily workhorse".
The future is here
As a smart product, no matter how much technological innovation and quality progress, it must eventually land on the user experience. The folding screen needs to take care of the display and conversion of the large screen and the small screen, and more complex work is required in the optimization of the system and the adaptation of the application.
According to the report released by iResearch Consulting, the software ecology is one of the key technologies of folding screen mobile phones, hardware is the basis for the development of folding screen mobile phones, and the use experience of software applications is the key factor that determines whether folding screen mobile phones can be popularized.
One of the reasons affecting the popularity of folding screens is that the relevant ecology has not been established, there are fewer apps that are adapted, and some Apps simply expand the screen, without the unity of hardware (folding screen mobile phones) and software (use experience), such as after fixing the degree of bending, the video is displayed in the middle of the folding.
Obviously, in the process of rushing, some manufacturers seem to pay too much attention to the hardware and ignore the importance of software as the soul of the mobile phone. In fact, hardware is the foundation of folding screen mobile phones, and the experience brought by software is the key to promoting its popularity. Honor's launch of folding screen mobile phones is based on the concept of "one in place", and more thought has been spent on software and hardware collaboration.
As a new form, folding screen mobile phones have undergone great changes to the interactive experience, bringing new challenges and room for improvement to the software. As a highly optimized AI all-scenario intelligent operating system, honor magic UI 6.0 system achieves cross-scenario, cross-device, cross-system, and cross-ecological intelligent interaction, and achieves perfect software and hardware collaboration.
The difference with other folding screen mobile phones is that the Honor Magic V adheres to the normal size and proportion of the 6.45-inch external screen, and the daily use experience and grip feeling are consistent with the straight board machine, and the daily use experience of the external screen is infinitely close to the straight board machine.
In addition, after the folding screen mobile phone inner screen is expanded, there is a large-screen experience and operation logic similar to the Pad, so it needs a new interactive design and more application adaptation to adapt to the large-screen experience, in the glory ecology, the vast majority of popular Apps have completed the adaptation, with its parallel horizon and split-screen technology, to bring users a revolutionary experience different from the bar board.
For example, in the same APP, you can display two screens, the left is the search box, followed by the search results; when you want to use different APPS at the same time, you can also display synchronously, open Taobao on the left to buy things, followed by WeChat chat, left is video, right is takeaway software, and so on.
Apple's success is due to the concise hardware design on the one hand, and the healthy ecology built by the App Store on the other hand. When the "smart phone 3.0 era" is coming, mobile phone manufacturers who intend to conquer the new era have also opened a software dark war, who can combine software and hardware to give users a better experience, who is likely to win the future.
In Huawei, Honor, Samsung, OPPO and other mobile phone manufacturers that have made software adaptation adjustments, honor has always emphasized the intelligent interconnection on its folding screen is also reflected, and the honor Magic V can also be well integrated into the "1+8+N" intelligent interconnection ecology, so that information can flow efficiently between various devices.
At present, the mobile phone industry chain is highly mature, and the innovation of the mobile phone industry is not limited to a single field and a single technology, but an overall innovation. The market's expectations for folding screen mobile phones are not just a taste toy, but a main machine that can be used daily.
When a folding screen mobile phone solves the problems of weight, thickness, standby, system adaptation, etc., it means that it is no longer an innovative product that is "unattainable", but a "one in place" more friendly main model, which is also the core positioning of the Honor Magic V high-end folding flagship.
epilogue
If the outside world's evaluation of the folding screen a few years ago is still "toy" and "concept", with the layout of more and more manufacturers, the folding screen mobile phone is not a transitional form, but has the potential to serve as the main machine.
It is true that folding screen mobile phones still have a lot of room for improvement in product experience, but with the joint efforts of upstream and downstream manufacturers, the solution of pain points and the advancement of product technology, more excellent quality, more practical functions and more affordable prices have been waiting not far away.