With the addition of vivo, the domestic folding screen mobile phone track is full of smoke, and the big war is about to start.
On the evening of April 11, Vivo released the first folding screen mobile phone vivo X Fold, priced from 8999 yuan. The machine is equipped with Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 flagship chip, which aggregates a new generation of screen hinge technology, and is also the first folding screen mobile phone equipped with dual screen fingerprints.
Folding screen: A must-have choice
From the basic configuration point of view, vivo X Fold uses a 6.53-inch, 21:9 aspect ratio external screen, and an 8-inch, 4:3.55 aspect ratio of the inner screen; the inner and outer screens support 120Hz high refresh rate, and all use pressure-resistant, durable UTG glass, equipped with 3D ultrasonic screen fingerprint recognition function. In terms of hinges, vivo X Fold supports 60-120 degree hover, six-fold aerospace grade material, rhein folding certification of 300,000 bending tests. The phone is also equipped with a 4600mAh battery, and the first batch supports 50W wireless flash charging.
"In the past four years, our users have been urging us to fold our mobile phones, reminding us not to get up early in the morning and catch up with late episodes, and to be honest, we are also anxious." Huang Tao, vice president of products at vivo X, admits that the team has deliberated dozens of versions of the program in the past four years, constantly denying itself, and struggling to find an option closer to "perfect" in the known solutions.
Why do you have to do folding phones? Canalys analyst Toby Zhu explained the reason behind it: "The highly differentiated shape of folding screen products is a key factor stimulating smartphone sales." Fu Liang, an independent analyst at TMT, further said that the folding screen is a representative of high-end models. "Others have you can't have, and even whether there is a folding screen mobile phone has become the standard to measure whether a manufacturer is a mainstream mobile phone manufacturer, especially at the moment when mobile phone manufacturers collectively impact the high-end market."
The data shows that in recent years, the shipment and sales of mobile phones in the mainland have declined simultaneously. According to the Statistics of the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, the shipment of mobile phones on the mainland in February this year was only 14.864 million units, down 31.7% year-on-year; according to CINNO Research, China's mobile phone sales in February were about 23.48 million units, down 20.5% year-on-year, down 24.0% month-on-month, and contracted year-on-year.
That is to say, boosting the weak mobile phone consumer market and opening up more high-end users are the core reasons for domestic mobile phone manufacturers to make folding screen mobile phones. According to expert analysis, by creating a folding screen mobile phone with complex forms and rich functions, domestic manufacturers hope to leave their own impression of "strong technical strength" in the minds of consumers and establish a high-end image of the brand.
At present, in addition to Apple, the domestic Top5 mobile phone brands (Xiaomi, Honor, OPPO, vivo) have launched folding screen mobile phone products. In the global market, Samsung has long been deployed in this field. In terms of market competitiveness, Xiaomi focuses on image performance and price advantages, OPPO emphasizes the advanced nature of self-developed hinge technology, Glory mainly promotes drop resistance and software operating system, and the main selling point of Vivo is the use of more mature folding technology and follow-up after-sales service.
Although manufacturers are full of enthusiasm for folding screen mobile phones, according to IDC statistics, folding screen mobile phones will account for only about 0.5% of the global smartphone market in 2021, accounting for about 0.4% of the market share of the smartphone market in the Chinese market. This also means that folding screen mobile phones are still a "niche" market, and there is still a long way to go before they become the "main machine".
However, according to Tianfeng International Securities analyst Guo Mingji on social platforms recently, Apple is testing a 9-inch OLED folding screen, which is expected to be launched around 2025. Other manufacturers are also planning the next generation of folding screen products.
This also means that the folding screen market will become the next place for mobile phone manufacturers.
There are still many questions about practicality, yield, etc
Although folding screen mobile phones are accelerating into the public eye, and in recent years, with the maturity of the industrial chain, the cost has declined, folding screen mobile phones are no longer up to 10,000-20,000 yuan of distant existence, but with seven or eight thousand can buy products. However, around practicality, product yield, etc., folding screen mobile phones still have a long way to go.
Taking hinges as an example, its design needs to consider hundreds of precision components such as folding screen-related connections, traces, and heat dissipation. The production process and assembly are difficult and high in value, involving a variety of processes such as MIM (metal injection molding) and liquid metal. This type of process not only requires a lot of investment from manufacturers, but also faces problems in terms of maturity. However, in order to win the "first" market, many mobile phone manufacturers have previously chosen to rush their products to the market, and they may face many quality problems in the future.
In addition, the lack of use scenarios is also one of the pain points of folding screen mobile phones. Some institutions said that many business people will fold screen mobile phones as "face" products, but in fact, after getting them, they are used more as tablets, and the corresponding functions created by manufacturers around the "folding" characteristics of mobile phones have not been taken seriously.
In this regard, vivo and other manufacturers have begun to explore more playability at the software and hardware level of "folding" mobile phones, such as the vivo X Fold using a hovering hinge design of 60-120 degrees, which is equivalent to adding more forms between the two forms of closure and expansion. Specifically, the mobile phone has added software such as amber scanning, sub-role recording, L-shaped hover video calls, etc., and has also reached in-depth cooperation with WeChat, and the first batch of tablet mode logins that support communication tools have been supported.
However, Qunzhi Consulting expects global foldable smartphone shipments to reach about 14.4 million units in 2022; Counterpoint Research estimates 18.3 million units. Honor CEO Zhao Ming more directly predicted that folding screen mobile phones will inevitably become a new growth area, and it is expected to replace ordinary mobile phones as mainstream machines in the future, and mobile phone manufacturers should invest in this.
A "folded" future is about to open the curtain.
[Reporter] Xu Jun
【Author】 Xu Jun
【Source】 Southern Press Media Group South + client