One article to understand the folding screen

Wen 丨 New Eyes, Author 丨 Ye Jing, Editor 丨 Sang Mingqiang

I often have the illusion of a folding screen phone: this is not a renaissance of flip phones.

In 2018, Royole FlexPai fired the first shot at folding mobile phones. In the subsequent Pakistan Exhibition, when people discussed artificial intelligence and ethics, the folding screen mobile phone was regarded as the final fantasy of the intelligent terminal device of this era, followed by Samsung launched the Galaxy Fold, Huawei released the Mate X, for a time, a large number of capital and players poured in, all players immersed in the study of folding screen mobile phones, 2019, also known as the first year of folding screens.

At present, although the folding screen is on the cusp of the wind in the past two years, there are not many players with domestic sound, Huawei, Xiaomi, OPPO, glory four-party forces divided one side, according to Counterpoint Research estimates: last year's folding screen mobile phone shipments of about 9 million units, is expected to climb to 53.4 million units by 2025, compared with last year's global smartphone 1.38 billion large disk, folding screen mobile phones in the shipment is not worth mentioning.

The problem is on the supply side.

Oppo Find N and Magic V, which have just been launched, have been sold out for a long time once they are released, online and offline must be booked in advance, and the new folding screen mobile phone is also defined as a "scarce resource", setting a membership threshold to restrict purchases. Some unofficial stores have even started a scalper business, purchasing on behalf of, robbing, the price is higher than the pricing of more than 2,000, anecdotal jokes: the purchase of folding screen mobile phones is equivalent to investment in financial products. All kinds of strange phenomena point to the dilemma of supply and demand of folding screen mobile phones. To this end, in this article we will focus on:

The development history of the folding screen;

Why is it difficult to commercialize folding screens?

Do we really need a folding screen?

Past lives and present lives

In 1973, on Sixth Avenue in New York, Martin Cooper called the first ever cordless telephone (Motorola DynaTAC).

The way people communicate is subverted. Ten years later, the Moto8000X "Big Brother" was launched, as the earliest consumer-grade wireless communication device, which caused quite a stir at the time, costing thousands of pounds and being regarded as a status symbol. Before the 21st century, mobile phones have been regarded as a luxury product, until entering the Nokia era, sales began to count in hundreds of millions, mobile phones began to be civilianized, straight plates, flips, slide covers and other forms began to appear.

In 2007, the original iPhone made "touch screen + straight board" into the mainstream. As processors, cameras, and memory iterations have approached the bottleneck, people have begun to look at the screen, but the problem is that smartphones are approaching the limit in size and portability, and the screen ratio of mainstream flagship models is about 80%-95%. Also in 2017, the annual smartphone shipments showed the first decline, the industry entered the stock era, and the emergence of folding screens was like a timely rain.

In 2019, when people discussed the topic of "what will be the terminal that users need after 5G coverage" at the Pakistan Exhibition, Huawei's MateX received unexpected attention at home and abroad at the venue, which was at the beginning of the US sanctions against Huawei, for folding screen mobile phones, Huawei did not think of mass production at that time, but the appearance of full technology and complex technology made the folding screen mobile phone show enough muscle.

The heat of the market indirectly changed Huawei's thinking, and it was not until the official pre-sale that the R&D team and supply chain manufacturers put mass production in the first place. Moreover, the problems that constrain mass output continue to this day: supply chains at the production end, hardware and software technology, low yield rates, and high costs and prices.

The controversy over folding screen mobile phones has never stopped, which can be traced from its first mass production: the Galaxy Fold released by Samsung in February 2019 was dissuaded from the first wave of Fold due to hard injuries in the screen, hinge, and system. It was re-listed after the upgrade in the same year, but the fragile screen, creases, half a pound weight, and immature system ecology made users frequently criticize. This can be seen from the share of folding screen mobile phones in the smartphone market of about 0.07%.

The heat of 5G has pushed the folding screen mobile phone to the outlet again to a certain extent. If you look at the recently released several folding mobile phones, we can observe that Samsung shipments are the highest, but the domestic sales are far less popular than domestic brands, leaving aside the technical level of dixin is still immature, things are rare and expensive, folding screen mobile phones a large part of the heat, the source of the domestic brand feelings and market coaxing.

Ends with attributes

The current types of folding screens can be divided into three types: inner folding, outer folding, and up-down folding and double folding.

Using an in-fold folding mobile phone, if you want the screen to match the fuselage, the direct bending will lead to direct fragmentation, so the mobile phone folding always considers the fuselage to match the screen. The solution given by galaxy fold is to use slide rails, through similar doors and door frames to make the reel between the screen add a sliding track, open the screen while the hinge changes position, leaving enough space for the screen to bend. But the complexity of the screen structure is doomed to eliminate the crease. The original Galaxy fold and Xiaomi mix fold are fixed with snaps because the hinges are fixed with snaps at the exhibition level, and the opening and closing feel is also very poor.

Folded out, as the name suggests, the screen fold is exposed, and the entire fuselage is used as the outside of the U-shaped structure. The screen folds outward, the back of the fuselage is subjected to an extrusion force, and the shaft rotates at the same time, turning the original rigid shaft structure into a precision gear that can be rotated at will, and the extrusion force is transferred to the shaft structure through the gear. The outer fold does solve the problem of the inner screen not closing, but the large size of the fragile screen, can not be shelled can not be filmed, the screen at the bend is more fragile, and this scheme requires a higher precision hinge to give the screen enough support, the cost is directly higher than the original 8 times.

Whether it is folded inward or externally, there are obvious problems in use.

The core difficulties are: flexible screen, hinge technology and adaptation. Although after several years of iteration of models, folding screen mobile phones have been able to provide a relatively complete experience, but the above problems have not been perfectly solved. Starting from the appearance and ending at the performance of the product, users also have their own biases in the choice of folding mobile phones.

According to fieldwork, people over 30 years old in the first line and the new first line pay more attention to horizontal folding mobile phones, and vertical folding mobile phones are more popular with young women because of their fashionable and convenient appearance. At the same time, the diversification of product forms and functions has become a new trend in the iteration of folding screen models, in other words, mobile phones are not only a mobile Internet terminal, but a mobile workstation that can replace PC functions.

The selling point of folding screen mobile phones is obvious: split-screen operation and large-screen visual effects have covered most of the lightweight office scenes and replaced some low-performance PCs. Seamless drag-and-drop between different programs, data data directly from the local reading, can meet the needs of split-screen multitasking table, PPT and run large mobile games. In this way, the folding screen mobile phone has encircled the business group in the user's choice, so it cannot break through in the short term.

Everett Rogers once proposed the "theory of the diffusion of innovation", in which the subjective can feel the information of a new thing being disseminated, "knowing-persuading-implementing-confirming". In the traditional cognition, consumption upgrades are bound to bring benefits to the mobile phone industry, in fact, it is not, mobile phones are returning to their tool attributes, mobile phone user layering has become more and more fine, it is difficult to rely on product form innovation to form a tide of replacement, many mobile phone players into the game to build cars, Millet, Huawei is the best example.

Supply chain uncertainty

There are many more problems faced by folding screens.

Supply chains are the most difficult points, and the long-term reliance on overseas core supply chains in the past is not a good idea. Taking the flexible screen as an example, as the key bottleneck component of the foldable cover, the current cover material is mainly divided into transparent polyimide CPI and ultra-thin glass UTT two, Samsung as the earliest manufacturer to use UTT, occupies the leading position in the global market, driving the industry cover material from CPI to UTT, the latter has high hardness, scratch resistance, high light transmittance characteristics, to make up for the former crease obvious defects.

Although there is no shortage of raw materials for UTG, the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain still need a lot of running-in.

The barriers to entry of the UTG industry chain are reflected in the development of original film technology, most brands still choose Samsung Display and SCHOTT Glass, and the competition between domestic and foreign investment is obvious. Relying on local core materials and device suppliers, from chips to screens, the rise of consumer electronics brands in Japan and South Korea, the industrial chain needs large-scale procurement support and R&D investment, which is not suitable for domestic enterprises to do long-term small strategic innovation attempts.

For example, in March last year, Kaisheng Technology planned to invest one billion yuan to build a UTG project with an annual output of 15 million pieces; in July of the same year, Side Semiconductor said that the UTG production line achieved mass production; Changxin Technology also planned a production capacity of 300K/M to meet the needs of customers and future time nodes.

In the folding screen hinge and hinge design, most of the domestic manufacturers are still dependent on foreign companies such as Annuo Electronics, just released Find N in the structural parts and screen program, more use of technology accumulation from Samsung, so that although it can use technical advantages to quickly enter the game, but can not form its own core competitiveness, and invest heavily in relying on overseas supply chain customization programs, is not conducive to the realization of domestic folding screen field expansion, upgrade and cost reduction.

Regarding the folding screen, a supply chain war may have begun.