Month: April 2022

Domestic demand set to surge as more users shift to portable, bigger devices

Domestic flexible display panel makers are set to witness explosive growth in the next few years as leading smartphone vendors ramp up efforts to roll out new products like foldable phones to bolster sagging fortunes.

Buoyed by the prospects, companies are already scaling up capacities in segments like flexible screens used for mobile devices and smart wearables, according to industry sources. These include active matrix/organic light-emitting diodes or AMOLEDs and organic light-emitting diodes used for displays.

BOE Technology Group Co Ltd, a Beijing-based supplier of display products and solutions, said in December that it is planning to build a new sixth-generation flexible AMOLED production line in Fuzhou, Fujian province, with a total investment of 46.5 billion yuan ($6.9 billion).

“The flexible AMOLED display brings more possibilities to a phone’s appearance,” said Zhang Yu, senior vice-president of BOE.

AMOLEDs are more flexible with faster responses, high contrast and wide visual angles, compared to traditional liquid crystal display, or LCD, panels. But they are in short supply and hence have huge market potential, due to the absence of competition.

BOE has three sixth-generation flexible AMOLED production lines at present. It started mass production of the panels from its facility in Chengdu, Sichuan province, in October 2017. The panels have already been used by more than 10 smartphone manufacturers including Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, Oppo Electronics Corp, Vivo Mobile Communication Technology Co, Xiaomi Corp, ZTE Corp and Nubia Technology Co Ltd.

The company’s second line in Mianyang, Sichuan province, is set to start mass production this year, while work on the third facility commenced in Chongqing last year.

While companies are bullish about market prospects, industry analysts remained guarded on the prospects for foldable products.

According to CITIC Securities, 2019 will be the first year of application for foldable and flexible screens and OLED panel shipments will cross 1 million units. However, companies may still face considerable challenges as steep prices could affect popularity.

IHS Markit, another market research firm, expects BOE to be the world’s largest supplier of AMOLED display panels this year, with shipments of foldable panels set to reach 50 million by 2025.

The optimism has already led to a surge in the prices of OLED-related stocks, such as BOE, Visionox Co Ltd, Lingyi iTech, Triumph Science and Technology, with most of the shares hitting the daily price limits.

South Korean tech giant Samsung Electronics Co Ltd currently dominates the global AMOLED sector, with a 90 percent market share.

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China is forecast to spend 900 billion yuan ($134 billion) to 1.5 trillion yuan on 5G network construction from 2020 to 2025, as the nation strives to commercialize the superfast fifth-generation wireless technology, a think tank affiliated with the country’s top industry regulator said on Monday. At the same time, China’s telecom carriers are expected to generate 1.9 trillion yuan in revenue from 5G-related business, according to an article released by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, which is affiliated with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. At the initial stage of building 5G networks, telecom carriers will first cover the most populated regions and the 5G network construction can coordinate well with existing 4G networks, the article added. In comparison, Chinese telecom operators spent 720 billion yuan on 4G network construction from 2014 to 2018, said Zhang Chunfei, one of the three authors of the article, adding that the cost of building 5G base stations is higher than that of 4G. The report came as China is conducting 5G trial operations in a string of cities, enabling large-scale pre-commercial use this year. Next-generation wireless technology is expected to be at least 10 times faster than 4G and will support superfast movie downloads, the streaming of virtual reality games and self-driving cars. Yang Yuanqing, a deputy to the 13th National People’s Congress and chairman of Lenovo Group Ltd, said 5G will play a direct role in fueling the development of China’s digital economy and it will ignite a creativity boom among all industries. “Traditional sectors need to pounce at the opportunities brought by 5G to upgrade themselves and create more dividend by significantly boosting efficiency,” Yang said. According to the article by CAICT, as 5G becomes increasingly intertwined with artificial intelligence, big data and other cutting-edge technologies, it can be widely used to overhaul the way enterprises operate research and development centers and reshape the manufacturing and management process.

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China will become the world largest smartphone superpower by 2025, according to a report by GSM Association (GSMA), the organizer of the Mobile World Congress in Spain, on Monday.

In the Mobile Economy 2019, three new smartphone superpowers will emerge by 2025, and China will take the lead with about 1.46 billion smartphone connections.

The report also mentions key highlights such as 5G, mobile internet and artificial intelligence . The fifth-generation technology or 5G will add $2.2 trillion to global economy over the next 15 years, the report said.

5G connections number will account for 15 percent of the world’s total to 1.4 billion by 2025, and the connections figure is forecast to reach around 30 percent in China and Europe, respectively, and about half of the total in the US.

More than 60 percent of the world population – about 5 billion people – will get access to mobile internet by 2025. By that time, mobile subscribers will reach to 6 billion, of which some 700 million will be new subscribers and half of them – 359 million- will come from Asia-Pacific.

China, which will contribute 8 percent to global new additions, takes the second place among seven countries in the world which account for half of new subscribers.

Mobile is a key driver for digital content consumption which is represented by video, the report said. A growing number of people take longer time and are more frequent to watch video on their devices. In 2018, China showed the highest proportion – about 80 percent – of smartphone users watching free online video at least once a month, an increase of 10 percent year-on-year.

AI could have a major impact on the world economy, since it may potentially contribute $16 trillion – which equivalent to an increase of 14 percent – to global GDP by 2030, and this could be as much as 26 percent in China, the report said.

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At this week’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, it became clear that 2019 is going to be the year of the foldable phone.

Several major phone makers showcased new flexible handpieces at the massive trade show that visits the city each year.

Hinges and special, bendable screens allow the devices to switch between smartphone and tablet.

Two telecommunications heavyweights – Huawei from China, and Samsung from South Korea – went head-to-head at the event, which is also known as MWC, this year, showing off their flexible offerings in pavilions directly across from each another.

Huawei’s foldable phone – the Mate X – was unveiled a few days before the MWC kicked off, and the phone has drawn a steady stream of visitors to the company’s pavilion.

The Mate X is an impressive feat of engineering. The hinge alone took three years to develop. The phone combines a foldable screen, artificial intelligence, and a new interface. It is also compatible with 5G networks.

Huawei believes the Mate X will be the phone to carry people into the 5G era. And it will be in direct competition with its flexible rival, the Galaxy Fold, by Samsung.

The Fold comes out this spring, though curiously no-one was allowed to get their hands on one at the MWC this week, where the device remained behind glass. Conversely, journalists and industry players were allowed to make an appointment to check out the Mate X.

“They heard we were launching, so they hurried to launch,” Yu Chengdong, CEO of Huawei consumer business group, told media at the tradeshow. “You can see this is a real phone. I’ve been using it for many days. The others? I don’t know, because they are not ready.”

Several other companies showcased foldable devices at MWC. Chinese electronics manufacturer Royole seemed to be having the most fun at the conference. The company slotted curved screens into top hats, T-shirts, and handbags, provoking a vision of the future where our accessories double as electronic billboards.

Royole allowed visitors to handle its foldable phone, which has been on the market for several months.

“We launched the world’s first commercial foldable smartphone last October,” said company co-founder Peng Wei. “This is the first commercially available foldable phone. We have already shipped orders.

“This flexible-screen technology enables innovation. Phones are no longer limited by a rigid screen. It’s a combination of phone and a tablet, so you can combine the large screen experience with the portability.”

Guangzhou-based electronics company TCL unveiled its DragonHinge technology at the MWC. The multi-gear hinge features in five new foldable devices from TCL, some of which will be available next year.

“We see the opportunity to really shape and bring something fresh to market,” Stefan Streit, TCL’s global marketing manager, said of the array of foldable devices the company will offer. “There’s so many different ways you can do them.”

Several other major phone makers have plans to make foldable phones, including LG, Xiaomi, and Lenovo. So far, iPhone manufacturer Apple has kept its cards close to its chest on the matter.

What is known is that the company has filed patents related to foldable technology, which suggests it is at least exploring the idea. In any case, if the technology is welcomed by consumers, Huawei and Samsung will have a significant headstart, and Apple will be in the uncommon position of playing catch-up.

5G has been another dominant theme at this year’s MWC and almost all of the vendors were plugging some aspect of 5G innovation.

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On Sunday, China’s tech giant Huawei officially unveiled Huawei Mate X, its first foldable smartphone. That came just five days after Galaxy Fold, the first foldable smartphone of Samsung. But foldables might not be the future of smartphones, comment two experts with China Daily’s Zhang Zhouxiang.

Yuan Xuanhua, a renowned industrial designer with 20 years’ experience in smartphone engineering.

Some media outlets have described foldable smartphones with so many sweet words as if they were a technological breakthrough. Unfortunately, they are not. The technology of foldable displays were invented as early as 20 years ago in a quite easy way — By replacing the glass that supports the display with foldable organic materials. Such displays can not only fold, but also curve.

Concerning the foldable screens of Huawei and Samsung, they have better displays with higher density rate and clearer, more stable display performance, but in essence they are still using the same technology. Therefore, foldable smartphones are more like a consumption-led innovation rather than a technology-driven breakthroughs. Although among the two, the Huawei Mate X is more practical than Galaxy Fold because the latter is folded inward to lower the risk of breaking apart while falling down, which is not so useful when breaking-glass insurance is popular.

More importantly, the “new” foldable smartphones are hardly of any practical use. Of course, one can easily double the display of the foldable smartphone by unfolding it so it has the size of an iPad, but that’s all. In plain words, the foldable display enables users to combine a tablet and a smartphone into one. There might be more uses in the future, but at least not for now.

When touchable displays for smartphones was invented, they did not get popularized until certain apps that suited touchable displays only, such as Fruit Ninjia, gained popularity. Now foldable smartphones faces a similar problem. Only when apps that suit the foldable smartphones are developed will the phones be truly accepted by the market.

Wu Shuyuan, a senior analyst at Sigmaintell, a company specialized in display analysis Samsung Fold and Huawei Mate X are both foldable smartphones, but they differ greatly in terms of design. The former is folded inward while the latter is folded outward, and each has its advantages and disadvantages.Samsung Fold looks not so perfect from the outside because the camera must not be covered during the folding, while the battery is also thicker. Huawei Mate X looks better, but its display is not protected as well as that of Samsung Fold and faces higher risk of breaking should the phone be dropped.

The two share one thing in common, namely a high price — Both are rather expensive. The Samsung Fold is priced at $1,980 while the Huawei Mate X is priced at 2,299 euros ($2,606). The high price will quite seriously limit the marketing of the two products and make them the luxuries of rich people only.

According to our analysis and market forecasts, in 2019, the number of foldable smartphones and tablets sold globally might reach 900,000, which might double in 2020. As a comparison, people globally bought 1.4 billion smartphones in 2018. In a word, unless its cost fall sharply, the market for foldable smartphones will be limited for the foreseeable future.

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