2021 is considered to be the "first year of folding screens", and 2022 is expected to be the "year of folding screen outbreaks".
GfK Sainuo's industry report shows that the domestic sales of folding screen mobile phones will grow against the trend in 2021, reaching 1.1 million units, with a growth rate of 187%, and it is expected that domestic folding screen sales will exceed 1.8 million units in 2022.
From touch screens to folding screens, one of the evolutionary hallmarks of mobile phones lies in the upgrade of the screen. 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 growing consumer demand and the increasingly mature industrial chain, the folding screen mobile phone market is about to explode.
This is of great significance to domestic manufacturers, whether they can compete with Apple in the high-end market, folding screen mobile phone is the key to it.
The price is down, and the outbreak is imminent
As soon as the folding screen came out, it was accompanied by a singing decline, and the high price was one of the important factors.
Indeed, the initial folding screen mobile phone in the AMOLED flexible screen, flexible cover and other important components, the yield is low, the cost is high, the price of the model at that time was pushed up to more than 15,000 yuan. The product design and the price that were not good enough left an impression on the consumers at that time - the folding screen was still a test of the water.
However, since domestic manufacturers accelerated their entry into the folding screen market last year, product updates are accelerating and maturity is rapidly improving. In March last year, the Xiaomi MIX Fold adopted AMOLED foldable screen, but the hinge design was relatively immature, the crease was obvious, and the outer screen was too narrow and long; in December, OPPO's Find N adopted Seiko quasi-vertebral hinge technology, and the crease distribution area was slightly wider but shallower.
At the same time, the price of folding screen mobile phones is also moving closer to "close to the people". Huawei's folding screen products, which were first released in 2019, were priced at more than 15,000 yuan; in March last year, Xiaomi released the MIX Fold price of 10,999 yuan (12G+512G version); in December last year, Huawei released the P50 Pocket priced at 10,988 yuan (12G+512G version).
It can be seen that the price of folding screen mobile phones has dropped by thousands of yuan within a year, but it is still far from the acceptance of consumers. OPPO's Find N released in December last year brought a breakthrough, killing the price to less than 8,000 yuan (starting from 7699 yuan).
More affordable prices and more mature quality ignited the enthusiasm of consumers, OPPO Find N sold more than 50,000 units in the two weeks of listing, and the number of reservations on the whole network exceeded 1 million.
Thanks to this, OPPO's market sales and sales of 7,000 yuan + have increased significantly, with two weeks of sales exceeding 32 times that of 2020, and in 2022, OPPO's Android market share of 7,000 yuan + has exceeded 8%, and there is a further upward momentum.
The blue factory vivo next door that has not seen the action for a long time has finally been unable to hold back, and will release its first folding screen mobile phone vivo X Fold in April, so far, the domestic head mobile phone brand has all entered the folding screen track.
Folding screen market is hot, for domestic mobile phone manufacturers are good news, Huawei's absence is difficult to have the next domestic manufacturers and Apple in the high-end market a competition, folding screen mobile phones in the use of the form of great breakthrough, is a rare high-end killer.
High-end killer
As the smart product closest to consumers, in addition to the price, the actual use experience is often more able to determine the market response of a product, which is also an indispensable element of high-end mobile phones.
According to the "China Folding Screen Smart Machine Market Development Trend" released by GfK Sainuo, in addition to the price, the folding screen product factors that consumers are most concerned about are screen creases, folding expansion ratios and software adaptability. In contrast, the performance of OPPO Find N, which accurately hits the preferences of consumers, is not difficult to understand that it is hot on the market.
The main influence on creases lies in the material of the screen cover and the hinge design. At present, the folding screen cover material needs to meet high light transmittance, bending resistance, high strength scratch resistance and other requirements, the difficulty is larger, there are two main routes in the industry, CPI (transparent polyimide) and UTT (ultra-thin flexible glass).
Compared with CPI, UTG has advantages in diluting creases, light transmittance, hardness, high temperature resistance, etc., the main disadvantage is the higher cost. Samsung Flip 3, OPPO Find N and other models have adopted the UTT scheme, in a number of folding screen mobile phones, crease dilution performance is outstanding, excellent touch, strong anti-aging ability and product stability.
As for the most complex and difficult hinges, it has been iterated many times under the impetus of mobile phone manufacturers. In the early days, the disadvantages of the U-shaped monorail hinge were obvious, in order to reduce the pressure at the bend of the screen, the Samsung Fold left a gap in the folding, which sacrificed portability to a certain extent. After that, the maturity of the droplet hinge double-track scheme has been improved, and the screen bending radius is larger, which can effectively protect the screen and fade the crease.
Looking back at the development path of the hinge now, the in-fold, droplet type, and double slide rail are the more leading choices, and huawei Mate X2 and OPPO Find N have adopted this route.
The LATE RELEASE OPPO Find N had enough time to learn lessons and improve the design, updated 6 generations of the program in 4 years, and finally adopted the self-developed Seiko quasi-vertebral hinge, with a maximum precision of 0.01mm, becoming the most complex and costly folding screen mobile phone hinge on the market at that time.
Folding and closing large and small screen forms, need to meet the diversified use scenarios, but also put forward a test for the size selection of internal and external screens - the outer screen can not be too small, the inner screen can not be too large, while considering the problem of application adaptability, the R & D team often has to face the dilemma of "favoring one over the other".
Samsung Fold external screen is too small to lead to the problem of poor use experience, is the product of the immature industrial chain, and then released Flip3 and Huawei's P50 Pocket to take the up and down folding scheme, pay more attention to portability and abandon the large-screen experience, which is contrary to the original intention of the development of folding screen mobile phones. How to grasp the balance is a design problem that all manufacturers need to face.
"In order to make this product, I have to 'force the development of the small partner to die'." I can't decide, I have made a good application for resignation. "In the face of difficulties, OPPO Peacock product manager Zhou Yibao did not have a certain victory at the beginning." Peacock" for Find N in OPPO's internal code name, how to make find N folding screen hands-on experience like a peacock open screen as stunning, screen size design is the key to it.
In order to define the ideal product size, the OPPO peacock team has designed 26 versions of the program, produced more than 120 model machines to polish repeatedly, and finally adopted the design of 5.49 inches of external screen and 7.1 inches of inner screen. The ratio of 18:9 on the outer screen allows ordinary users to control 85% of the area with one hand, and the unfolded inner screen is slightly shorter in length, which is more in line with the visual range of the human eye.
Obviously, the biggest highlight of this design is that it attaches importance to the use of both the outer screen and the inner screen, and maximizes the full capabilities of the folding screen mobile phone.
However, hardware design is not the end, the optimization of the system, the adaptation of the application directly affects the experience effect of the scene, only software and hardware collaboration can achieve the ideal state. OPPO ColorOS designed interactive methods for Find N such as two-finger sliding screen split screen, four-finger pinched floating window, and free dragging, which is more in line with the user's sensory intuition.
The free hover mode brought by the Find N hinge is the best carrier for in-depth cooperation with third-party applications. For example, after more than ten encounters with the QQ team, the OPPO team and the QQ team have realized the in-depth customization cooperation of innovative interactions such as multi-task gestures and free hovering.
Affordable price, smaller creases, rich free hover features... They are all the folding screen elements that are closest to consumers' choice at present - the folding screen is not a temporary gimmick, but a high-end flagship machine that truly meets more user use scenarios.
Compete for the high-end "lifeblood"
Folding screen has become a major weapon for manufacturers to rush to the high end, and with the folding screen mobile phone as a breakthrough, it not only needs excellent product quality, but also grasps the initiative in the "lifeblood" of the supply chain. Domestic manufacturers are in the folding screen mobile phone to the limelight, behind the hidden a domestic industrial chain of the rise of the road.
Before 2016, more than 90% of the global flexible OLED panel production capacity was controlled by South Korea. Since 2018, domestic manufacturers have accelerated their layout, and domestic manufacturers led by BOE have accelerated their seizure of the market, and their four production lines are expected to have a production capacity of nearly 200,000 pieces / month, and are expected to surpass Samsung to become the largest supplier in 2025.
Under this trend, domestic foldable mobile phone OLED panel sales are expected to jump from 2.02 billion yuan in 2021 to 14.85 billion yuan in 2025, achieving localization.
UTG glass supply chain, Samsung gave up the monopoly to open supply to external manufacturers, domestic manufacturers stepped up the layout, there is also a trend of localization. Side Semiconductor, Kaisheng Technology, Changxin Technology and other manufacturers announced the research and development progress of the UTG glass project last year, for example, Side Semiconductor plans to build two production lines with an annual output of 6 million sheets in Hangzhou, with an investment of about 130 million yuan in equipment each.
At present, although there is still some gap between the domestic UTG production line and Samsung, the yield rate of Kaisheng Technology is about 50%, the yield rate of Changxin Technology is 56%, and the UTG yield of Samsung has reached more than 60%, but the "benefits" brought by the progress of the supply chain to the mobile phone industry have been revealed.
In 2020, the number of CPI with lower cost of folding screen mobile phones is 6 times that of UTG, and with the increase in the yield of UTT glass technology progress, it is expected that the adoption of UTT will exceed CPI in 2023, which will bring excellent display effects and diluted creases to more folding screen mobile phones.
Folding screen another major core component hinge costs about 10% of the terminal retail price, becoming a strategic control point for manufacturers, on this highland, domestic mobile phone manufacturers and upstream supply chains are working together, the middle shaft mechanical bearings South Korean supply chain manufacturers' solutions need 150-200 US dollars, domestic manufacturers can do about 100 US dollars.
Mobile phone manufacturers that are closer to consumers have also made great efforts in the development of parts. For example, OPPO has been increasing the patent layout, and actively explore diversified screen forms, in the horizontal scroll, vertical scroll, vertical inward folding, surround screen and other aspects of related innovations, currently has 840 folding screen field patent applications, authorized invention patents more than 230 pieces.
The mature evolution of the supply chain has further brought about the downward price of folding screen mobile phones and the improvement of product quality, and under the common goal, domestic mobile phone manufacturers and upstream supply chains have obviously reached a tacit understanding.
epilogue
The battle of high-end mobile phones is destined to be a protracted battle, and domestic mobile phones have shown an indomitable fighting spirit and are at the forefront in the field of folding screens. Grasp this wonderful opportunity, in the high-end arena with Apple's wrist, who will win or unknown.