What does the folding screen mobile phone market look like today?
According to IDC, China's smartphone market will ship about 271 million units in 2023, down 5.0% year-on-year, the lowest shipment in nearly 10 years.
In stark contrast, China's folding screen mobile phone market will ship about 7.007 million units in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 114.5%. Since the launch of the first product in 2019, China's folding screen mobile phone market has grown by more than 100% year-on-year for four consecutive years.
In the case of the saturation of the smartphone market and the overall downturn, folding screen mobile phones can be said to have sprung up. In order to cope with the fierce market competition, domestic mobile phone manufacturers generally adopt the dual flagship layout of "straight screen + folding screen".
"Consumer Reports" noticed that mobile phone manufacturers other than Apple, the frequency of new folding screen releases has shown an increasing trend year by year. Taking Honor as an example, it has successively launched Magic V, Magic Vs, Magic V2, Magic Vs2, and V Purse.
Why does the folding screen mobile phone become a "sweet spot" in the eyes of manufacturers and consumers? What advantages does it have in terms of user experience? Is the current folding screen technology reliable?
The average price of new folding screen products exceeded 7,000 yuan
After years of iteration, straight mobile phones have entered a bottleneck period of development, and consumers' replacement cycles have become significantly longer. According to iResearch's research data on the "pain points of using straight mobile phones", 37.7% of users think that "the design is single and ordinary", 25.6% of users think that "the screen size is not large enough", and 22.8% of users think that "large size is not portable".
In this context of development, folding screen mobile phones have won the attention and early adopters of consumers with their differentiated appearance and powerful functional experience. 49.3% of folding screen users are satisfied with the appearance design, and 39.0% of users mention that the hover function brings a convenient experience. Compared with straight phones, folding screen phones that can hover freely at multiple angles bring more ways to shoot, and swiping videos in the hovering state also solves the problem that users don't have a mobile phone holder or the bracket is too bulky.
With the development of the overall technology of folding screens, mobile phone manufacturers have brought consumers a variety of folding screen form options, mainly including horizontal outward folding, horizontal inward folding and vertical inward folding. The horizontal feature is a large screen ecology, bringing an immersive experience, and the vertical feature is small and flexible, easy to carry.
It is worth noting that in 2023, the price segment of China's smartphone market will continue the K-shaped differentiation trend. The high-end market share above $600 reached 27.4%, an increase of 3.7 percentage points, while the low-end market share below $200 rebounded to 27.5%, an increase of 5.2 percentage points.
Although the current market size of folding screen mobile phones is not large, its growth momentum has become a bright spot in the industry. In the "Folding Screen Market Trend Insight White Paper", IDC predicts that China's folding screen mobile phone market will reach nearly 15 million units by 2027, with a compound annual growth rate of 37.8%.
The broad market space and high-end positioning have made folding screen mobile phones a "sweet spot" for mobile phone manufacturers. Domestic manufacturers have regarded it as a new track to hit the high-end market. In 2023, the average price of folding screen mobile phones released by major mobile phone manufacturers will be more than 7,000 yuan, which is significantly higher than that of straight board flagship phones. Among them, Huawei's average price is the highest, reaching 12,999 yuan, and its sales have exceeded one million units. This also indirectly shows that folding screen mobile phones have gained a firm foothold in the high-end market, and they are not "priceless".
According to a study by iResearch, Huawei is the first brand mentioned in folding screen mobile phones, with 41.5%, followed by Samsung with 31.7%, both of which are far ahead of other brands. Judging from the timeline, Huawei and Samsung are the first mobile phone manufacturers to deploy folding screens. Among them, Huawei is currently the only manufacturer with three forms of folding screen mobile phones.
According to the market share of China's folding screen mobile phone manufacturers in 2023 released by IDC, Huawei is unbeatable, reaching 37.4%, the second camp (more than 15%) is OPPO and Honor, and the third camp (about 10%) is Samsung and vivo.
In terms of focus models, Huawei Mate X5, Huawei Mate X3, Huawei Pocket S, OPPO Find N2 Flip, and Honor Magic V2 are the top 5 folding screen mobile phone sales in the Chinese market in 2023 (from iResearch Consumer Research Institute).
Huawei Mate X5 series is equipped with flagship configurations such as a four-curved folding body, Xuanwu tempered Kunlun glass, Lingxi AI algorithm, two-way Beidou satellite messaging, and a 5060mAh large battery. It ranks first in the word-of-mouth evaluation of consumer reports, and is more recognized by consumers in terms of appearance, performance, battery life, and sound quality.
Huawei Mate X5
The Honor Magic V2 brings an innovative thin and light design, with a folding thickness of about 10mm and a weight of about 230g. To this end, Honor used the self-developed Luban titanium hinge, and also designed the structure of the hinge into the form of an integrated mortise and tenon joint to reduce the internal parts used. In addition, Honor has comprehensively improved the energy density of the battery by introducing silicon carbon anode material + low-voltage charge concentrating technology.
Honor Magic V2
There are many warranty complaints about folding screen mobile phones, and the point of controversy lies in "man-made damage"
Since folding screen mobile phones have to go through thousands of opening and closing folds in their life cycle, the key to product maturity lies in whether the screen and hinge can provide effective support for the functionality, durability, and portability of the mobile phone. The screen is generally encapsulated with multi-layer thin film, which increases the durability of the mobile phone's dynamic folding to a certain extent, and the hinge is generally designed with a waterdrop-shaped hinge that folds seamlessly. On these basis, various brands have also optimized the design of structures and the application of high-strength materials.
Even so, the reliability of foldable phones is still questionable. 14.4% of folding screen users mentioned "poor durability and stability", and 20.2% of users mentioned "obvious screen creases".
With "folding screen" as the keyword, the reporter searched for more than 2000 consumer complaints on the black cat complaint platform, involving brands including glory, Samsung, Motorola, OPPO, etc., and the feedback problems are mainly focused on screen leakage, screen black lines, screen bulges, hinge failures, and refusal of insurance during the warranty period.
Last year, consumer reports found in a survey of the Honor Magic series of folding screen phones that some users were dissatisfied with the fact that Honor after-sales service identified the phone as man-made damage during the warranty period and asked users to repair it at their own expense. The controversy in many of the complaints is whether Honor can provide test reports or relevant evidence to prove that the failure of the mobile phone is human-generated.
Article 23 of the Law of the People's Republic of China on the Protection of Consumer Rights and Interests stipulates that if a consumer discovers a defect in durable goods such as motor vehicles, computers, televisions, refrigerators, air conditioners, washing machines, etc., or services such as decoration and decoration provided by a business operator, within six months from the date of acceptance of the goods or services, and a dispute arises, the business operator shall bear the burden of proof for the relevant defects.
It is worth mentioning that the cost of replacing the folding machine screen is quite high. Consumer Reports has compared the screen replacement costs of 18 hot-selling folding screen phones. The price of replacing the inner screen of a variety of folding screen mobile phones is about 5,000 yuan, which is enough to buy a new straight board flagship machine. Among them, the replacement cost of the inner screen + outer screen of folding screen models such as OPPO and Honor accounts for more than 60% of the price of the new machine.
Therefore, we recommend that consumers who buy folding screen mobile phones should buy additional broken screen savers. This service is better for some screen failures that are not covered by the warranty.
The thin and light all-round type may become the mainstream in the future
It is understood that Apple began to explore the folding screen iPhone as early as 2018, but after more than five years of research and development, folding screen products are still expected to be difficult to enter the market in the short term. Part of the reason is that the design team wanted to balance thinness and lightness with the addition of an external screen, but the reality of components such as batteries and displays is difficult to match this demand.
iResearch's data shows that 96.7% of wait-and-see users are willing to choose a folding machine as their next mobile phone. Therefore, the development direction of folding screen phones is crucial.
When purchasing a folding screen mobile phone, nearly forty percent of users pay attention to the light and thin grip (body thickness, weight, etc.), hardware configuration (screen, camera, chip, etc.), and software functions (system ecology, split screen function, etc.) of the mobile phone, which shows that users will consider the lightness and functional configuration of the product. More than 40% of users prefer to choose a body weight of less than 230g, and more than 50% of users prefer a folded thickness of less than 10.0mm. This weight and thickness are basically the same as those of today's straight-board performance flagships.
The reporter compared some of the horizontal folding screen mobile phones on sale and found that the thickness range of the folded state is 8.5mm to 13.5mm, and the weight range of the fuselage is between 210g and 260g. Among them, the Honor V Purse is only 8.6mm thick and weighs only 214g. This is due to the use of butterfly wing hinges and Qinghai Lake battery technology.
Honor CEO Zhao Ming once said that he would take the thickness of the straight board machine that consumers can accept as the goal of the folding screen, and when the folding screen mobile phone and the straight board machine are about the same in thickness and weight, consumers will have no reason to refuse the folding screen.
However, Guo Tianxiang, a senior analyst at IDC China, pointed out that "thin and light" has become the primary factor influencing consumers' choice of folding screen mobile phones. However, if the blind pursuit of "light and thin" leads to a decline in reliability, it will directly affect consumers' long-term choices in the future.
At present, the leading mobile phone manufacturers have gone beyond the single pursuit of thinness and lightness, and turned to the design concept of both versatility and thinness. For example, some flagship folding screen models are equipped with flagship functions such as IPX8 waterproof, two-way Beidou satellite messaging, and wireless super fast charging on the basis of light and thin.
On the other hand, compared with the fixed volume of straight phones, vertical folding screen phones bring a unique experience of being small and portable, with a strong sense of fashion. The potential users of vertical folding products are usually "fashionable young women", and there is still a lot of room for development in the use scenarios of the products.