Why are foldable phones so popular but so little effective?

Huawei's foldable phone is about to be launched. On October 14, according to people familiar with the matter, Huawei's first foldable phone, the Mate X, will be released on the 26th of this month, and Samsung's foldable phone, the Galaxy Fold, will also be officially launched in China in November. From the first quarter of this year to now, the release time of these two phones has been repeatedly postponed due to screen and adaptation issues. Compared with the enthusiasm when the concept was launched, the foldable phone market is now relatively calm, and the sales forecast for this year is even less than 1/4 of that at the beginning of the year. Although the market and consumers still have expectations, the insufficient production capacity and poor yield of the foldable screen supply chain, as well as the problems of mobile phone thickness, battery life, heat dissipation and other experience aspects have yet to be solved.

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Comeback

On October 14, there was news in the industry that Huawei Mate X has already entered mass production and will be officially launched in China at the end of this month. However, due to the difficulty of production and low yield rate, the initial supply will not be too large. Huawei did not respond to this news. However, an insider revealed to the Beijing Business Daily reporter that Huawei will release Mate X in China on the 26th of this month, so the launch time should not be too late.

The Mate X was first launched globally in February this year and was originally scheduled to go on sale in the middle of the year. However, the Samsung Galaxy Fold encountered embarrassing screen quality issues at the time. Perhaps affected by this, Huawei chose to postpone the launch of this foldable screen phone and announced that it hoped to optimize the App adaptation for the foldable screen and strengthen quality control.

In June this year, He Gang, president of Huawei's mobile phone product line, revealed in an interview that "Mate X adopts a brand-new product design and supports 5G. It is expected that Mate X will debut in the next one or two months." However, the official launch time was not officially given at that time, after all, the folding screen requires a lot of application adaptation work.

In August this year, Huawei said that it would start selling the Mate X between September and November, but there was no sign of sales until the end of the National Day holiday. Some analysts pointed out that because Huawei released and started selling its new mainstream flagship Mate 30 series last month, it was inevitable that the first sales of the two new phones would be staggered.

In addition to Huawei, Samsung's foldable phone Galaxy Fold has also been repeatedly delayed. The global launch of this product was also in February this year. However, during the evaluation process after the launch, the Galaxy Fold was found to have a risk of screen damage, so Samsung took the initiative to cancel the early pre-order orders on the official website and did not announce a specific timetable for re-release.

In June, a person close to Samsung told a Beijing Business Daily reporter that the Samsung Galaxy Fold would be launched in China in July, but three months later, there is no sign of a release. The above-mentioned person familiar with the matter revealed that the release time of the Samsung Galaxy Fold in China has been changed to early November.

Market calm

Folding screen mobile phones were considered one of the major trends in mobile phones in 2019 at the beginning of the year. At the beginning of this year, related concept stocks rose sharply. In fact, before Huawei and Samsung launched their first products, a domestic manufacturer called "Royole Technology" had already released the so-called "world's first foldable flexible mobile phone."

However, the latest Global Foldable Smartphone Outlook Report released by market research company Counterpoint Research predicts that the annual shipment of foldable smartphones this year will be about 400,000 units, less than a quarter of the forecast at the beginning of the year (1.9 million units). Counterpoint Research pointed out that the small shipment volume and the delayed launch time have reduced consumers' attention and purchasing psychology.

A Beijing Business Daily reporter contacted the relevant person in charge of Royole Technology regarding the sales volume of the first foldable mobile phone. As of press time, the other party had not provided relevant data.

As Huawei's largest screen provider, BOE originally planned to provide Huawei with foldable screen mobile phone screens, but last month there was news that BOE would start a production cut plan. It is said that BOE's production cut plan is due to insufficient production of the sixth-generation flexible OLED and weakened market demand. In addition to postponing its production plan, the company will also lower its production target.

It is reported that after Samsung's foldable screen mobile phone Galaxy Fold was launched in South Korea on September 6, the initial shipment volume was only more than 3,000 units.

Nowadays, the market is less and less vocal about foldable phones, and consumers are becoming more rational. Beijing Business Daily reporters found that there are not many consumers who are really interested in foldable phones. Some netizens said: "Even if it comes out, I dare not use it. There will definitely be problems, and the production capacity cannot keep up." Another netizen said, "You want to sell foldable phones, not me. It has nothing to do with me. The same is true for 5G phones. It's the merchants who are anxious, not the users."

However, a few netizens expressed their interest in foldable screen phones, but most of them were deterred by the high price. "If the price is not so high, I will consider it." "Foldable screens are definitely a trend. At least they can occupy the tablet market. It is normal for new products to have some problems."

Technical bottleneck

"All the foldable screen mobile phones released now are no better than the concept released by Lenovo three years ago. Many manufacturers are still making PPT products. The products are placed in glass cabinets and the prices are very high. You can buy several tablets with them." Yang Yuanqing, chairman of Lenovo Group, once commented on foldable screen mobile phones.

The reason why foldable phones have made a lot of noise but little impact is largely due to unresolved technical issues. Ma Jihua, a senior communications industry expert, believes that the technical pressure on foldable phones is very high. In the past, all technologies related to smartphones were designed for tablet phones. Once applied to foldable phones, many integrated or matching technologies are not yet available and there are still questions.

Communications expert Liu Qicheng further pointed out that there are several problems that need to be solved at present. One is the axis problem; the second is the folding and thickness problem of the screen; and the third is the software system problem, that is, how to split and merge the screen.

Regarding the future prospects of foldable screen mobile phones, the views of industry insiders are not consistent. "I am optimistic about the future of foldable screens, at least I want to use one as soon as possible." Ma Jihua said frankly that judging from the development speed of 5G, as the network level improves, users' demand for large screens will become stronger and stronger, but the overall size of current mobile phones can no longer be expanded. In addition, the emergence of hole-punch screens and under-screen fingerprint technology still cannot solve the problem of large screens. Only folding technology can make the screen large and easy to carry. If this road is not feasible, new technology will be needed, and it may take longer to wait.

"Technical loopholes are normal. In fact, when smartphones first appeared, the most important thing was multi-touch. The first generation of iPhones didn't perform well, but it quickly matured. I think foldable-screen phones will enter a period of explosive growth in about a year or at most two years," said Ma Jihua.

Liu Qicheng believes that although there is a certain market demand for foldable screens, it is only a niche market. "With the development of smartphones today, there is no room for innovation in hardware form. Foldable screens are actually an extreme manifestation of full-screen phones and a variation of dual-screen phones. They are a reflection of the excessive packaging gimmicks of mobile phone manufacturers. When Apple makes foldable screens, it means that the technology is fully mature. Now Samsung and Huawei are trying to grab the concept and show that they are leading in technology in this field."