Previously, "5G" and "folding screen" became the two key words of this year's exhibition at the World Mobile Communications Conference (MWC), which can be called the technical foresight in the field of mobile communication. Among them, folding screens are the most concerned. Samsung and Huawei folding screen mobile phones have appeared one after another, causing heated discussions inside and outside the venue.
It can be predicted that the mobile phone manufacturers who were still fighting for the full screen last year will usher in a "folding" card position war this year. At this point, the folding screen mobile phone that has been shouting slogans for several years has changed from a concept to a reality.
Some people in the domestic smart terminal industry believe that the application scenarios and market acceptance of folding screen mobile phones are still being explored due to high technology, production capacity and cost, and the short-term popularization expectation is not optimistic. In the predictions of many organizations, the global shipment of 20 19 folding screen mobile phones is around one million.
But this does not affect the participation of major manufacturers in this future competition.
Major manufacturers join the "folding" track.
In the early morning of February 2 1 Beijing time, Samsung released the first folding screen mobile phone Galaxy Fold at its annual flagship conference in San Francisco. The phone folds inward and is equipped with a 7.3-inch foldable OLED display. The size of the folded mobile phone is 4.6 inches.
Four days later, Mate X, Huawei's first commercial 5G folding screen mobile phone, appeared at MWC 20 19, and Huawei's folding smartphone was listed at the end of June.
Yu Chengdong said that Huawei Mate X has an eversion design, which is different from the folding method of Galaxy Fold. When unfolded, it is an 8-inch flat panel with a thickness of 5.4 mm, and when closed, it becomes a 6.6-inch dual-screen mobile phone.
Although at MWC 20 19, Samsung and Huawei's folding screen mobile phones are still placed in a glass cover and can only be watched from a distance, the discussion on folding screen mobile phones outside the venue is extremely intense.
Previously, a "mutual tear marketing" between Xiaomi and Yu Rou Technology has pushed the folding screen mobile phone to the forefront.
65438+1On October 23rd, Lin Bin, co-founder and president of Xiaomi, released a demonstration video of the prototype of Xiaomi's double folding project in Weibo. He announced that after overcoming many technical problems such as flexible folding screen technology and four-wheel drive folding shaft, Xiaomi made the world's first double folding mobile phone.
After Lei Jun shouted to his friends, "Look down on life and death, do it if you don't accept it", Yu Rou Science and Technology immediately responded. Fan Junchao, vice president of Yu Rou Science and Technology, alleged in the WeChat circle of friends that Xiaomi released a concept flexible screen that was difficult to mass-produce, but claimed to have conquered the flexible display technology. He also said sternly and fiercely, "Except Samsung and LG, (other manufacturers) are buying conceptual flexible screens, which cannot be mass-produced and listed, and the whole machine is far from being listed."
As early as 20 18, 10 and 3 1, Yu Rou Science and Technology took the lead in launching "FlexPai", and its core selling point was "the world's first foldable flexible screen mobile phone".
After Xiaomi was choked, its public relations department responded to Yu Rou and explained the R&D technology. Song Jianing, director of product management of Xiaomi, said that Xiaomi is trying various foldable concepts, and the folding screen mobile phone will be released when the technology is mature.
At the 20 19 meeting, Yang, chairman and CEO of Lenovo Group, questioned that the so-called folding screen mobile phone is a "PPT product" locked in a glass cabinet. "Lenovo showed the folding screen concept machine at Tech World three years ago. The folding screen products released by various manufacturers this year did not exceed the technical scope at that time. "
Lenovo has developed for three years and has not launched a folding screen mobile phone. In this regard, Wang Chuandong, vice president of Lenovo Group and chief marketing officer of China District, recently said that Lenovo has always attached importance to the research and development direction of folding screen mobile phones, but because of technical problems, it is difficult to form mass production of folding screen mobile phones in a short time.
Shen Yiren, vice president of OPPO and president of Chinese mainland Division, once bluntly said in an interview that the current folding mobile phone is "folded for the sake of folding" and "failed to reach the value of a mature commercial product". However, with the hot discussion about "folding", Shen Yiren also announced the prototype of OPPO folding screen mobile phone in Weibo, and attached an article saying, "If there are enough people, you can consider whether to mass-produce."
On March 20th, TCL Group revealed its plan of TCL Communication's folding screen mobile phone, which is expected to be listed in the first quarter of 2020, mainly for overseas markets. It is worth noting that the screen of TCL Group's folding terminal is mainly provided by its screen manufacturer Huaxing Optoelectronics. As early as MWC 20 19, TCL Group specially set up a booth to display the flexible display technology and concept terminal of Huaxing Optoelectronics.
According to incomplete statistics, before and after the opening of MWC 20 19, in addition to Samsung Galaxy Fold commercial mobile phone and Huawei Mate X commercial mobile phone based on 5G technology, domestic and foreign enterprises such as ZTE, OPPO, Xiaomi, Google and TCL intensively disclosed the company's folding mobile phone products or technology patents.
At "20 19MWC Mobile World Exhibition", Yu Rou Science and Technology launched the FlexiPai foldable mobile phone product. Figure/vision china
Apple, which has been leading the global innovation trend, is also joining the "folding" track, and a number of folding technology patents have emerged. According to Apple's latest patent published on AppleInsider's website, Apple is developing a folding technology in which the folding point will automatically heat up, in order to deal with the problem that using the folding terminal is easy to cause damage in cold conditions.
Technical difficulties
In the face of doubts, both Samsung and Huawei responded with mass production plans.
Samsung said it is ready for mass production. The first time to market is expected to be April 26th this year, with an estimated shipment of 6,543,800 units.
Huawei said Mate X is a mass production machine, not a concept machine, and Yu Chengdong recently confirmed to the media that the listing time will be in June this year.
Li Huaibin, an analyst in the mobile phone industry of IHS, told China Newsweek that there will be a breakthrough in the mass production of folding mobile phones this year, but the order of magnitude will be slightly smaller. "The initial analysis predicted that the shipment in 20 19 was 500,000 units, but now, this number may increase."
As a new type of consumer electronic product, the first step to enter the market is to have a relatively perfect market maturity, and the core problems to be solved are the screen itself and hinge technology.
From the screen itself, the development of flexible screen provides technical support for the innovation of this round of mobile phone manufacturers. The so-called flexible screen refers to the flexible organic light-emitting diode screen, which is more flexible, foldable and thinner than liquid crystal (LCD) and rigid organic light-emitting diode screens. As a matter of fact, the curved screen and full screen that manufacturers are competing to launch are one of the applications of flexible screen, which makes the full screen of organic light-emitting diode gradually become the standard of various high-end flagship models, and the "foldable" scheme can better reflect the characteristics of "flexibility" and become an innovative attempt of intelligent terminal form.
Meanwhile, as a screen manufacturer and mobile phone manufacturer, Samsung has certain advantages in this round of competition. As early as 20 1 1, Samsung began to lay out flexible display production lines. In China, screen suppliers such as BOE, Shentianma and Visionox have also made efforts in the field of flexible display.
After folding mobile phones became popular, BOE A, a Huawei Mate X screen supplier, gained a long-lost daily limit in the stock market. Many folding concept stocks in the capital market, such as rainbow shares, Shentianma A, Visionox and TCL Group, all gained good gains.
Zhang Yu, senior vice president of BOE, told China Newsweek that in order to ensure the durability of the screen when it is folded and opened, the BOE screen needs to be tested 200,000 times after folding. "At present, the industry takes 200,000 times as the standard, that is, it is guaranteed to reach a service life of more than three years under the condition of opening and closing 100 times a day to meet the replacement cycle."
The folding mobile phone needs multi-layer structure synchronization to realize folding. The solution given by Huawei is a four-layer structure design-a screen protective layer made of polymer material, a flexible screen that can be bent, a soft rubber support piece and a rotating shaft. The most important thing is the design of the rotating shaft. "Huawei spent three years tackling key problems to solve hinge design, and used more than 100 parts to realize seamless folding." Yu Chengdong explained.
According to the realization forms of folding mobile phones or concept machines in mass production at present, there are four folding modes: inward folding, outward folding, double folding and downward folding. The folding of Huawei Mate X can completely fit the folding screen. After the Samsung Galaxy Fold is folded in, there will be gaps between the screens due to the existence of hinges.
These two representative folding methods have their own advantages and disadvantages. "The shell of the flexible screen mobile phone is a PI film instead of glass, and the surface hardness is very different from that of glass. Huawei and other mobile phone manufacturers should consider the scratch resistance of the screen when adopting the external folding method. Samsung's internal folding method can ignore the risk of friction, but internal folding requires a smaller radius of curvature of the screen, which is more difficult to achieve from a technical point of view. " Li Huaibin analyzed.
At present, the shape innovation of folding mobile phones is still being explored, and there is no mature experience to learn from before different folding methods.
Huang Xiuqi, vice president of Visionox, told China Newsweek that taking the design of double-fold mobile phone as an example, its layer structure is different from that of single-fold, whether it is the film itself or the interlayer, including the design of film layer and the stress control of module structure. Simply considering the screen part may be easier to solve, but as far as the design of the whole machine is concerned, the difference is quite big.
High cost
For a long time, the biggest factor restricting mobile phones is the display area of the screen, which is also an important factor for mobile phone manufacturers to adopt curved screens and full screens to increase the proportion of screens.
"You can download a 1GB HD movie in 3 seconds" and "Live the video shot by an 8K HD camera in a long distance". The changes brought by 5G are full of uncertainties in all industries. The folding screen mobile phone represents the trend judgment of mainstream mobile phone manufacturers on the first content explosion in the 5G era.
Liang, an observer in the consumer electronics industry, believes that the core value of folding screen lies in improving screen efficiency and providing differentiated user experience in a limited bearing space.
At present, the folding screen mobile phone can reach the tablet size of about 7 inches after being unfolded. However, the larger the screen, the higher the requirements for the endurance of the mobile phone.
Lei Jun, founder, chairman and CEO of Xiaomi, once said that the battery of the folding screen mobile phone is pitifully small, and it takes up space after a few folds.
In this regard, Li Huaibin believes that "the power consumption will inevitably increase after the application of 5G, and new application content will be generated in the 5G era. The battery life of folding screen mobile phones needs to be solved by various manufacturers. "
In addition, the high pricing of folding screen mobile phones may become an important factor restricting consumers' demand for changing machines. Samsung's Galaxy Fold is priced at $65,438 +0.980 (about RMB 65,438 +0.330). Huawei, which is "not the most expensive, only more expensive", directly raised the price to 2,600 US dollars (about RMB 1.75 million yuan).
This makes the industry generally not optimistic about the size of folding screen mobile phones. Today-SurveyMonkey survey shows that consumers are unwilling to pay more than $65,438+0,000 for new mobile phones. At the same time, another study shows that consumers are prolonging the time to replace their mobile phones, and are not prepared to follow the release cycle of mobile phone manufacturers to upgrade their equipment as in the past.
The cost of folding mobile phones is limited by screen yield, industrial chain support and other issues. At present, the yield of flexible screens announced by domestic representative screen manufacturers is between 60% and 70%. According to industry analysis, this refers to the comprehensive yield, including display yield and module yield. "According to the experience of peers, the yield of flexible screens is not high, and about 30% is relatively high."
In addition, the cost increase items of components are mainly screen modules and hinge components. As far as the cost of the folding mobile phone produced by Samsung is concerned, it is nearly 65% higher than the iPhone XS. For example, the screen module costs more than 200 dollars, while the previous screen cost was only about 100 dollars, an increase of more than 100%. In the hinge design, Korean manufacturers need 150 ~200 USD, while domestic manufacturers can achieve about 100 USD.
"Folding phones still face many challenges. For example, the screen can be folded, but the circuit board, components and chips cannot be folded. In addition, the service life of the folding mobile phone, the scratch resistance of the screen and the convenience of operation all need to be tested by technology and market. " Liang said that the flexible display of organic light-emitting diodes has brought endless industrial imagination to consumer electronics, home appliances and IT communication industries, but in which fields and how to apply them, further exploration is needed.