It is no exaggeration to call 2019 the "first year of folding screen mobile phones". After Samsung and Huawei released the folding screen phones Galaxy Fold and Mate X at the beginning of the year, by the end of the year, Motorola's Razr V3 and Xiaomi and Gree's folding screen patents successively swipe the screen.

From the current point of view, 2020 may become a key year for Huawei, Samsung, Motorola and other mobile phone manufacturers to fight against the folding screen mobile phone market. According to the Yonhap news agency, Samsung will be the first to launch a new folding screen phone in February 2020. Yu Chengdong also revealed at the pollen annual conference that Huawei ’s second folding screen phone Mate Xs will be held at the MWC Global Mobile Communications Exhibition in February 2020. At the show, it will have a better hinge design, a better processor, and it will be more abundant in stock than the Mate X.

It can be seen that the major mobile phone manufacturers are either releasing folding screen products or developing folding screen products. As the folding screen market continues to be hot, terminal manufacturers are constantly exploring the application direction of folding screens, while panel manufacturers are stepping up their respective flexible AMOLED production capacity to cope with the forthcoming folding screen mobile phone market.

Folding screen mobile phone market is ready

At the current stage of the development of the smart phone industry, whether it is a full-screen or slotted hole, it has not been sufficiently attractive to consumers, and the folding product has changed consumer perception from the product form. OP Chang, Vice President of the OPPO and Dean of the Academy, believes that the future form of mobile phones must be folding. OPPO's folding screen products are undergoing intensive research and development. At present, there are many reserves in folding screen technology and patents.

With the continued downturn of the smartphone market in 2019, the emergence of folding screen phones is expected to ease the continued decline in mobile phone sales. According to IHS forecasts, foldable mobile phone shipments are expected to be 8.3 and 17.5 million units in 2020-2021, and shipments will climb to 53.4 million units by 2025, with a compound annual growth rate of 81% and a penetration rate of approximately 3.4% .

Industry insiders said, "Samsung and Huawei's foldable smartphones have brought increased demand to the market, and tablet PCs, notebook computers, etc. will also be equipped with foldable display development trends, which has a great impact on the size of the foldable panel market. With the formalization of the mass production of foldable panels by panel companies, the market size is expected to show substantial growth. "

At present, major panel companies are accelerating competition in mass production of foldable panels. Samsung Display, LGD and BOE are in the leading position of foldable panels. The folding screen technology of TCL Huaxing and Shentianma also made new progress.

On January 10, 2020, TCL founder and chairman Li Dongsheng said in an interview that the folding screen produced by TCL Huaxing has been supplied for Motorola Razr mobile phones, and TCL Huaxing has also become one of the head suppliers of Razr folding screen mobile phones. He believes that the growth rate of folding screen mobile phones will be very high in 2020, on the one hand because the base number of folding screen mobile phone shipments in 2019 is relatively small, on the other hand, it depends on the market acceptance.

The related person of Huaxing Optoelectronics told Jiwei.com that TCL Huaxing's self-innovated laminated structure can realize outer fold, inner fold, and double fold forms to meet the different needs of different customers. The AMOLED flexible folding screen equipped with TCL Huaxing's independent innovative laminated structure has been unveiled at the 16th Optical Expo. The flexible foldable screen includes static and dynamic bending and supports application forms such as inward folding or outward folding. After folding, Can be held with one hand. Thanks to the innovative laminated structure, it is possible to switch between a double-fold shape with an outer fold radius of 5 mm and an inner fold radius of 3 mm at the same time. In terms of reliability, the flexible folding product has passed 200,000 dynamic folding tests, with a service life of more than 3 years, which is higher than the general life expectancy of consumers' mobile phones. TCL Huaxing's flexible AMOLED panel focuses on flexible display technologies such as foldable products, and its products have been recognized by many brand strategic customers.

Tianma has also accelerated its layout in the folding panel market. Tianma said that it will not be absent from the folding mobile phone market and will cooperate with customers to launch folding mobile phone products, which are expected to ship in the first half of 2020.

Although foldable mobile phones have become the air vent and are favored by capital, panel manufacturers have also accelerated mass production of foldable panels to meet market demand. However, as far as the current technical means is not mature enough, it remains to be tested whether it can really bring value to consumers, and the large-scale mass production of folding panels also needs to be solved urgently. This is also the reason why most terminal manufacturers are in a wait-and-see state without specific progress; however, driven by pioneers such as Huawei and Samsung, folding screen mobile phones and the industry chain behind them may have good growth potential in the future. .

Problems such as display and hinge design need to be solved urgently

Although the market has huge potential, flexible folding screens still face challenges in folding screen folding design, hinge design, battery capacity, cost, UI design, etc. at this stage. Qunzhi Consulting believes that "the key to folding screen mobile phones is the hinge. Whether it is folded in or out, there is a so-called R angle (folding radius), which also tests the ability of panel manufacturers. In comparison, The R angle is smaller than the outer fold and is relatively easy to handle. In addition, there is actually a crease after unfolding, but Samsung and Huawei have both processed it. The smoothness and abrasion resistance after folding are good. But can it be maintained after mass production? Morphological stability remains to be seen. "

The person in charge of Huaxing Optoelectronics also told Jiwei.com, "To reduce the cost of folding a mobile phone, we need to solve technical problems in the cover, hinges, polarizers, etc. The cover must meet the foldability, light transmission and protective performance. CPI ( Colorless transparent polyimide film) is currently the main solution, and UTG (ultra-thin glass) is also the research direction of terminal manufacturers; hinges are also the key to achieving foldable mobile phones. The design of metal hinges has a complex structure and proposes the processing of precision parts. Higher requirements also increase the cost significantly; the touch electrode material solution needs to be converted from ITO material to Metal Mesh, and the polarizers for folding screens need to be significantly reduced in thickness. "

It can be seen that the folding screen mobile phone must be folded and bent more than 200,000 times and maintain a 5 year service life. Its core difficulty lies in the display and hinge technology. A foldable phone needs a flexible, bend-resistant AMOLED display, and it also needs to bear the precision hinge that connects the two halves of the device. Compared with the flagship phones released during the same period, the increased raw material costs of Samsung and Huawei folding phones are mainly reflected in components such as display screens, hinges, motherboard PCBs, batteries, and chips.

Take the comparison of Samsung Galaxy Fold and Galaxy S10 + as an example, the total cost has increased by 30%. Among them, due to the increase of the display screen area of ​​the Galaxy Fold, the BOM cost of the display has increased by 77% compared to the Galaxy S10 +. In addition, the cost of components such as batteries and shafts increased by 120%, and the cost of PCBs increased by 14%. In addition, due to the dual motherboard design of folding mobile phones, the amount of chips, FPCs, metal structural parts, electromagnetic shields, etc. will also increase significantly.

According to IHS Markit data, the average selling price of mobile flexible OLED panels is about three times that of hard-screen OLEDs and more than six times that of LCD screens. DSCC predicts that with the maturity of technology and the improvement of supply, the cost of foldable OLED screens will decrease rapidly in the next three years, and by 2022 the cost will drop to about $ 90, a decrease of about 50%.

Industry insiders also told Jiwei.com, "The price reduction of folding screen mobile phones requires a process, which depends on the speed of capacity release of various panel factories." In the future, as the production process of folding panels accelerates, product prices return to normal, and folding mobile phones are expected to become the next flashpoint in the mobile phone industry.