Folding screen cell phone is ushering in a new market boom. 2021 December, OPPO, Huawei launched its new folding screen cell phone products, in January 2022 glory also launched a new folding screen cell phone, the launch of the glory CEO Zhao Ming bluntly said that to make the "folding screen cell phone into the era of the main machine".
International Data Corporation (IDC) recently released a report that global folding phone (including flip and folding form factor) shipments soared in 2021, totaling up to 7.1 million, compared to 1.9 million in 2020, an increase of 264.3%. And according to Canalys' latest forecast, global annual shipments of folding screen phones will exceed 30 million units in 2024.
2022, will be the first year of folding screen phone scale development?
In this regard, Zhao Ming said that the folding screen is no longer a trial product, insisting that 2022 will be the year of rapid amplification of the folding screen market space. Sun Yanbiao, chairman of Sunrise Big Data, said that due to the "Mi Rong OV" (millet, glory, OPPO, vivo) and other domestic mainstream cell phone manufacturers have made efforts to folding screen phone, the first half of this year is expected to be the highest global folding screen phone shipments will be up to 4 million, and Canalys made 2024 global folding screen phone shipments. Folding screen phone shipments in 2024 by Canalys will be more than 30 million predictions are too conservative, this data may have to be more than 100 million.
Over 100 million shipments in 2024?
According to the IDC report, the size of the Chinese market folding screen products in 2021 is about 1.5 million units, Huawei accounted for nearly 50% of the market share, followed by Samsung and Xiaomi. IDC believes that, despite the soaring shipments, the folding screen products in 2021 in the domestic smartphone market accounted for only about 0.5%, which is still a niche product.
Jingdong self-supporting cell phone sales ranking in January, in addition to the iPhone, domestic cell phone sales ranking is still the price of 1,500 ~ 3,500 yuan of low-end models, and the price of high folding screen phone in addition to a small number of fresh users, the current still does not have the potential to become a mainstream cell phone.
Up to now, domestic mainstream smartphone manufacturers have released folding screen cell phone products, of which millet took the lead, in March 2021 released the first folding screen cell phone millet MIX FOLD; OPPO, Huawei followed, in December 2021 has released folding screen cell phone OPPO Find N and HUAWEI P50 Pocket; In January 2022, Glory officially released its first folding screen phone, Glory Magic V.
According to other industry sources, Xiaomi's next-generation folding screen phone and Vivo's first folding screen phone are both expected to be unveiled in the first quarter of this year. Meanwhile, Tianfeng International also predicted that Apple may launch a folding screen iPhone in 2023; market analysts also expect that domestic Android folding screen phones will be released intensively in the coming months.
In addition, on the Black Cat complaint platform, the complaints about folding screen phones mainly focus on the screen splash screen, obvious creases, liquid leakage, and hinges with strange noise. Industry insiders said that on the basis of the traditional cell phone difficulties, folding screen also has the design of the pivot, the separate development of the operating system, the screen is easy to break and the cost of screen replacement and other unique difficulties.
Sun Yanbiao said, "Mi Rong OV" high-end road in the loss of Huawei as a benchmark, began to comprehensively benchmark Apple, cell phone features on the innovation of the ceiling, coupled with the cell phone replacement cycle grew to 30 months, the folding screen cell phone is an important killer mace of their hard line Apple.
"In the next two years, the folding screen phone in the global smartphone shipments will account for one-fifth of the 'Mi Rong OV' are also predicted that, or else they will not focus on the folding screen phone in recent times." Sun Yanbiao expects that by 2024 folding screen phone shipments may exceed 100 million.
The rate of good quality is up to standard, but the demand is not enough
For example, Liu Zuohu, Chief Product Officer of OPPO, pointed out when talking about the OPPO Find N that the reason why the folding screen phone used to be a taste rather than a common use lies in the fact that the problems of reliability, durability, and price have not been solved, and he typed for the OPPO Find N. He labeled OPPO Find N with the keyword "from taste to use".
Zhao Ming, on the other hand, shouted out a slogan of support for the Honor Magic V, "truly let the folding screen into the era of the main machine". "From 2022, the folding screen is certainly a good opportunity, but still the same sentence, what is the core technology and capability of the folding screen, and what consumers need folding screen." Zhao Ming said.
Sun Yanbiao believes that in the process of targeting Apple, although the current domestic mainstream cell phone manufacturers in product quality, user privacy protection, operating system optimization, etc. has achieved a good performance, but in this form of straight plate machine, their products temporarily unable to surpass the iPhone, and now only in the folding screen this form of domestic cell phones can have the opportunity to take back a city.
Guorong Securities analyzed that the folding screen industry chain, the current Chinese panel manufacturers such as BOE, VISION, deep Tianma have flexible AMOLED mass production capacity.
In this regard, Sun Yanbiao said that the folding screen production capacity to keep up, Huaxing Optoelectronics executives have said, now it is not the yield did not do up, but the market demand did not come up, the current yield has been able to cope with the market demand, if the yield and then do up, there is no demand for it will be a loss of money.
However, Sun Yanbiao believes that the folding screen phone as a "Mi Rong OV" impact on the high-end, against Apple's products, their collective order, although it can pull down the price of the folding screen phone, but the minimum price will not fall below 6000 yuan.