At the end of the year, the folding screen mobile phone market suddenly became lively. Recently, Honor released the first high-end folding screen flagship Honor Magic V after independence, sending out the first cannon of the folding screen mobile phone market in 2022. What is more surprising is that the class popularity of Honor Magic V exceeds market expectations, and there is even a phenomenon of "one machine is difficult to find" in all channels.
Not long before, OPPO and Huawei also launched new folding screen mobile phones. Compared with two years ago, there are few players in the folding screen mobile phone industry, and now major mobile phone manufacturers have begun to enter this subdivision track. In the era of stock, will folding screen mobile phones become another growth point of the industry? At a time when the market pattern is undecided and new forms of mobile phones are in the ascendant, is it worth looking forward to positioning folding screen mobile phones in the high-end market?
Honor Magic V was released, and the market segment boomed
As the first folding screen mobile phone to be listed in 2022, the debut of the Honor Magic V can be described as a matter of great attention. Fang Fei, president of honor product line, said in an interview with the media: "Glory Magic V integrates Glory's understanding of consumers, technology capabilities and the accumulation of industrial chain ecology, bringing a 'one in place' product experience, and is currently the leading product of the entire folding screen industry." ”
Image source Glory official website
It is understood that Honor Magic V has chosen a difficult ultra-thin suspended water droplet form hinge design, which effectively ensures the opening and closing life and crease degree of the mobile phone through the precise combination of triple aviation-grade materials and 213 high-precision components. In addition, on the system, Honor Magic V is equipped with a new generation of Snapdragon 8, which works together with the self-developed OS Turbo X flagship hardware and software to greatly improve system fluency, system anti-aging and system power consumption performance.
Folding screen mobile phones have faced a series of technical problems since their birth, Fang Fei said that the core pain points of folding screen mobile phones are still in the three dimensions of thickness, weight and screen experience. In view of these pain points, Glory has made many efforts in the process of research and development. Some netizens commented, "The screen crease of this mobile phone is not obvious, the thickness is thin, and the hands-on experience is good." ”
From a technical point of view, Ding Shaojian, founder of Nail Technology, said that Glory has achieved the smallest in the industry in the bending radius, making the folding screen more light and thin. In the past, due to technical reasons, the bending radius was large, so the product was very thick and the portability was poor. In addition, the system adaptation will be better, and some dual-screen application innovations will be more.
Obviously, the technology of folding screen mobile phones is constantly improving and upgrading. Looking back at the development of folding screen mobile phones in the past, in 2019, Royole Technology released the first folding screen mobile phone PlexPai, Samsung, Huawei, motorola have successively launched folding screen mobile phones, including external folding, internal folding, horizontal folding, vertical folding and other forms, but also due to obvious creases, bulky fuselage, poor application adaptability and other issues have been criticized. Now, the launch of these new forms of mobile phones did not cause much waves.
However, in the case of the peak of the incremental dividend of the straight-screen mobile phone, the folding screen mobile phone, as a new subdivision track in the industry, contains a blue ocean that has yet to be developed. The pace of the major player layouts may be slow, but it will not stop. At present, this market segment is ushering in a new round of boom.
In the past six months, in addition to Glory, OPPO and Huawei have also launched new folding screen mobile phones. The release of honor Magic V triggered a wave of market heat, and the voice of "one machine is difficult to find" came and went. According to media reports, a number of offline channels in Shenzhen are out of stock, and some glory channel providers said that "adjustable goods, but need to increase prices", which shows its fiery degree.
According to industry sources, after the Spring Festival, vivo and millet will also release a new generation of folding screen mobile phones, when Apple will increase the number of entry, the market has not yet been determined.
Problems such as creases and application scenarios still need to be optimized
Compared with the traditional straight-screen mobile phone, the new form of folding screen mobile phone has the advantages of large screen, portable, split-screen interaction and so on. However, at present, its development is not mature, creases, adaptability of software applications, use experience, etc. are generally concerned issues in the current market.
Judging from the two newly released models recently, major manufacturers are committed to reducing the presence of creases. Folding screen mobile phone can achieve folding, hinge can be said to be the top priority, but also one of the most difficult and highest value-added components in the mobile phone. In the previous press conference held by OPPO, it said that OPPO Find N uses self-developed Seiko pseudo-vertebral hinge technology, which reduces visual creases by up to 80%, which is the folding screen mobile phone with the lightest crease on the market; similarly, Glory also said that in order to achieve the most perfect folding form, Magic V chose the most difficult to achieve the water drop form hinge design.
Although manufacturers are trying to alleviate creases, people's doubts about creases are still difficult to eliminate. Some netizens reflected that the two creases in the middle of the Huawei Mate X2 he bought were very obvious, basically two white lines, and nothing could be seen. Another netizen reflected that Samsung's folding screen is much better, but it is easy to appear "bursting skin".
In addition, the adaptability of software applications has also become one of the main problems of folding screen mobile phones. Fang Fei once said that the new form of folding screen has undergone a relatively large change in interactive logic, and has also brought great challenges to the software system. At present, the folding screen mobile phones that appear on the market have not been able to solve this problem very well. Taking OPPO Find N as an example, some previous reviews pointed out that Baidu Maps cannot be used horizontally in app applications, and QQ cannot open chat windows in the contact interface. The recently released Glory Magic V is also difficult to avoid the problem of poor fit, and some netizens have reported that the proportion of pictures will be compressed after individual apps are folded.
In this regard, Liu Yushi, senior analyst at CINNO Research, said that in addition to the crease optimization, dustproof, collision prevention, etc. that have been emphasized in the past, in the face of actual consumer needs, how to ensure the compatibility of folding screens with various daily application scenarios is the current difficulty. Folding screen due to the addition of folding mechanism, often in the battery, fast charging, fingerprint and other aspects of the ordinary flagship machine compromise, so to meet the daily use of the inherent shortcomings.
Sun Yanbiao, chairman of Rising Sun Big Data, pointed out that one of the reasons for the immaturity of the current folding screen mobile phone application ecology is that its sales are not high, and it has not yet formed a certain scale of customer groups and a stable profit model, so it has not attracted many mobile developers to develop applications. Folding screen mobile phones in the application of innovation and display, is just getting started now. Only when the folding screen mobile phone is really involved in the heavy user group of mobile phones, will it drive the market to develop the APP in depth.
Will 2022 be the first year of the outbreak?
Although the development of folding screen mobile phones is not yet mature, overall, its global shipments are rising rapidly, and the growth rate is also accelerating. With the continuous increase of major manufacturers, the folding screen mobile phone market is ushering in a new east wind of development.
According to a report released by the DSCC, shipments of folding smartphones reached 2.6 million units in the third quarter of 2021, larger than the previous four quarters combined, up 215% sequentially and 480% year-on-year. Shipments of folding smartphones will also hit records in the fourth quarter of 2021, with another 47% quarter-to-quarter growth expected and more than 450% year-on-year to 3.8 million units.
For the full year 2021, DSCC slightly raised its folding phone shipment forecast, with the latest quarterly report seeing folding smartphone shipments grow 241 percent to 7.5 million units in 2021.
Folding screen mobile phone global shipments. The source of the figure is the DSCC Research Consultation Public Account
For 2022, the market attitude is more optimistic. According to CINNO Research, the global market is expected to sell 15.69 million folding screen smartphones, an increase of 107% year-on-year. In the future, with the continuous decline in the cost of folding machines, technological innovation, gradual enrichment of products and software upgrades, the market size will continue to expand, CINNO Research believes that in 2025, global folding screen smartphone sales are expected to reach 57.4 million units, with an average annual compound growth rate of CAGR of 66%.
Southwest Securities expects that the global shipments of folding screen mobile phones will reach 18 million to 20 million in 2022, an increase of more than 100% year-on-year, and the penetration rate will rise from 0.18% in 2021 to 1.83%. An obvious trend is that the market size of folding screen mobile phones is rapidly expanding, and the industry has entered a stage of rapid growth.
The market has a view that in 2022, the global folding screen mobile phone or will usher in the outbreak of the first year. Wit Display chief analyst Lin Zhi said that in 2022, all mainstream brand mobile phone manufacturers will launch their own folding screen mobile phones, and the planned shipments are at the million level, and 2022 will be a flip year for the folding screen mobile phone market.
So, what kind of development will the folding screen mobile phone usher in, is it worth our expectation? "At present, although there are already a number of folding screen products on the market, and the shipment volume has been greatly improved, the folding screen products are still regarded as a special form of novel appearance, which is mainly loved by geek players and has not yet achieved public recognition in practicality." But because of this, the panel factories and terminal manufacturers that are the first to develop folding screen application scenarios will still have a large space for development. Liu Yushi told reporters.
Major General Ding believes that after the software adaptability, use experience, application scenarios and other aspects of polishing better, the future folding screen mobile phone positioning high-end market vertical crowd, and may even become a popular product in the vertical market segment, but it is unlikely to become a popular mass product. At present, the market will continue to grow, and the development of the industry still needs to be explored.
"Folding screen mobile phones are a key opportunity for domestic mobile phone brands to achieve curve overtaking." Sun Yanbiao pointed out that an embarrassing situation faced by domestic brands is that Apple accounts for 70% of the market of more than 800 US dollars (about 5,000 yuan), Samsung accounts for 20%, and domestic mobile phones have not yet formed their own influence in the high-end market, and folding screen mobile phones will be a key step to successfully break through.
In 2022, whether folding screen mobile phones will usher in the first year of the outbreak is not yet known. It can be seen that a new trend has been formed, and the enthusiasm of the market is fermenting.
Aoyi news reporter Feng Xiaohui Lin Sisi