Finally, in April 2022, Vivo released its first folding screen phone "X Fold". In this way, Samsung, Huawei, Xiaomi, OPPO, vivo five mainstream Android mobile phone brands, all launched their own folding screen mobile phones.
However, it is also a folding screen mobile phone, but the product goals of each company are different. So much so that there is a call in the market that "only by making folding screen mobile phones can we do high-end brands". But is this really the case?
The battle for flagships
The folding screen mobile phones are brought to the market and supplied in large quantities by Samsung and Huawei. The former's Galaxy Z Fold and the latter's Mate X, only a few days before and after the official release, can be said to be synchronously introduced to the market.
At that time, the folding screen was not a real "consumer-grade" product in terms of availability or price, but the reason why Samsung and Huawei wanted to launch it was for the brand battle of the Android flagship.
Since the success of the Mate 20 series in 2018, Huawei, as a representative of China's high-end mobile phone brands, has competed with Apple and Samsung internationally, especially Samsung, which belongs to the Same Android camp, and its high-end series originally has a very low sense of presence in the Chinese market, and the Huawei P series and Mate series have made Samsung worse.
Therefore, for Huawei and Samsung, it is not a high-end brand because it has made a folding screen. But after it is already a high-end brand, it has to do high-end mobile phones in order to maintain the brand image.
Not to mention that Samsung itself is the largest OLED flexible screen manufacturer, the launch of folding screen mobile phone, is the biggest publicity for their own flexible screen.
Domestic closely followed
As for Xiaomi, OPPO, vivo, the three domestic manufacturers, in essence, the main products are low-end machines. Take Xiaomi as an example, even in 2021, Xiaomi's high-end flagship product Xiaomi 11 Ultra, which is more than 5,000 yuan, will sell only a few million units, and the core is still a mid-range model of 3,000 yuan such as Redmi.
If you can't do high-end machines, you can't make money, you can't get exclusive technology, you can't do high-end machines, and it has become a dead cycle. How to break this cycle, the way domestic manufacturers choose is to pile up materials, launch similar to the past Samsung Note series of the same machine, the hardware configuration is full, and then shout a slogan similar to "Android light".
Folding screens, such a new form of equipment, have naturally become the main battlefield for domestic manufacturers to display "technology". From Xiaomi's MIX Fold, to OPPO Find N, to vivo X Fold. Each generation of products is getting better and better, and the usability is getting stronger and stronger, so that in just half a year, the MIX Fold, which is regarded as the king of cost performance, has been left behind.
But has the folding screen mobile phone allowed domestic manufacturers to rush into the high-end? Xiaomi from the 10 series to today's 12 series, is said to be serious product homogenization, the system is more and more difficult to use; OPPO Fin X series thunder and rain points are small, once the main Promotion of the Reno series in the entire 2021 almost no sound.
In short, consumers for domestic mobile phone manufacturers, the impression is still "comprador" level, the core components all rely on suppliers, even if the folding screen is done, it is still an assembly plant. That is the current reality.
Apple watching the play
Android manufacturers are playing hot on folding screen mobile phones, but Apple is not moving. According to its executives, according to Apple's current evaluation of folding screen products, iPhones in the form of folding screens will not be considered until 2025.
Of course, there is no folding screen, and it does not prevent Apple from standing in the first position of high-end mobile phone brands. Because "high-end" never refers to the surface of the product, but the accumulation of technology and resources behind it.
At present, among mobile phone manufacturers, enterprises with chip and system design and research and development capabilities are still only Apple, Samsung, and Huawei, and Huawei are unable to produce for them because of sanctions, but it does not mean that Huawei has lost its design and development capabilities.
In fact, although Apple has not launched a folding screen mobile phone, in recent years, it has realized the overall closed loop of the operating system, completed the full unification of the processor, and realized the business expansion at the content service level.
It's like cooking, when domestic manufacturers are still competing for who can fry delicious, Apple is already thinking about how to make the plate more beautiful. In addition to software and hardware capabilities, Apple has also built its own music, news, and streaming media platforms to circle users with content services.
Apple told domestic manufacturers with practical actions that it is not necessary to do folding screen mobile phones to stand firm in the high-end market.
High-end manufacturers can do folding screen mobile phones, but the folding screen mobile phones are not high-end manufacturers, and the two are not absolutely related. I think what domestic mobile phone manufacturers need to do should be to improve the availability of products. In the context of hardware homogenization, who can provide differentiated software and services is the focus of attracting users to pay.
Domestic brands do not pay attention to software and services for a day, and folding screen mobile phones will only be a cup of water products.