Is it difficult to popularize folding screen mobile phones in five years？

　　Our reporter Zhao Peng.

　　 Turn on the second-changing PAD, a folding screen mobile phone called "future mobile phone", but it has just fallen into a dilemma. In February of this year, Samsung released its first folding screen mobile phone — — Galaxy Fold, and it is scheduled to be released on April 26. However, as the problem of frequent failures in evaluating mobile phones is exposed, it is a suspense when Galaxy Fold will be put on the market, and it may even be forced to cancel all reservation orders. According to industry analysis, due to shortcomings such as price, production capacity and durability, folding screen mobile phones may be difficult to popularize within five years.

　　Want to save the decline of smart phones

　　Folding-screen mobile phones are considered to be the next major trend of smart phones. The successive release of Samsung and Huawei folding-screen mobile phones has made consumers feel amazing. However, what followed was Samsung’s "rollover" accident: black screen, raised folding hinge, screen crease and other problems, which made people start to worry about the practical prospect of folding screen.

　　In the next year of the 4G era, smart phones tend to be homogeneous, and under aesthetic fatigue, CPU processing speed, phone thickness, battery life and camera pixels have become the focus of competition among major manufacturers. Canalys, a market research organization, recently released the latest statistics report on global smartphone market, showing that global smartphone shipments decreased by 6.8% in the first quarter of this year. This is the sixth consecutive quarter of decline.

　　As the global mobile phone sales champion, developing new markets and winning more new users is undoubtedly the main reason why Samsung insists on entering the folding screen mobile phone market. Samsung originally wanted to break the deadlock in the market downturn with the folding screen mobile phone. However, it turns out that the technical stability, yield and durability of the folding screen mobile phone are far more important than competing for eyeballs. It is far from enough for manufacturers to occupy innovative heights and fail to produce excellent finished products.

　　According to foreign media reports, Samsung has issued a statement that if the Galaxy Fold problem cannot be solved before the end of this month, all reservation orders will be cancelled. As of press time, Samsung China did not respond to this news.

　　Flexible screen yield to be improved

　　It’s not just Samsung that is caught in the fold. As early as October 2018, the domestic Rouyu folding screen mobile phone had accepted an appointment in official website, but few mobile phones were received by consumers.

　　"On April 28 this year, Rouyu took out some folding screen mobile phones and had a day of snapping up in Tmall. On May 9, Rouyu will also launch a round of snapping activities in official website in a similar way. " The relevant person in charge of Rouyu told this reporter. However, Rouyu said that it is inconvenient to disclose data such as production capacity, sales volume and yield.

　　The reporter logged into Rouyu official website and found that its folding screen mobile phone is still accepting reservations, but he also specially reminded that the reservation is only a reminder of the sale, which does not mean that the reserved user has the purchase qualification. This wording is not difficult to see. At present, the stocking quantity of Rouyu folding screen mobile phone will not be very large.

　　What is the experience of folding screen mobile phone? Previously, a number of experience videos released by netizens showed that Samsung Galaxy Fold and Huawei Mate X had a faint gray-white crease in the middle of the screen without exception. For users who are demanding perfection, creases are undoubtedly a hurdle.

　　It is also known that there are not many companies that can produce flexible OLED production lines in the world at present, including Korean companies Samsung and LG, China companies BOE, Visionox, Huaxing Optoelectronics and Tianma, and their mass production time is basically between 2018 and 2023, but it is still uncertain when the overall production capacity of flexible screens will be released and when the yield will reach the standard.

　　The bottleneck of high price and low durability is likely to last forever.

　　This year was once called the first year of folding screen mobile phone. However, after the Samsung accident, some people in the industry expressed concern about this epoch-making product.

　　Zhao Ming, president of Glory, said publicly recently that he didn’t think folding screen products would become the only mainstream design in the future. Zhao Ming analyzed that there are still huge defects in the weight and thickness of the folding screen mobile phone, for example, the thickness after folding is about 1 cm. Larger screens need more and heavier battery support, which is a "hard injury" for consumers who have long been accustomed to thin and light mobile phones.

　　华为消费者业务CEO余承东曾披露，华为Mate X仅铰链链条就有多达100余个零部件。对于机械产品来说，活动部位越精密、零件越多，出问题的概率自然会增加。

　　“目前技术下折叠屏铰链基本只支持一两万次开合，而用户每天折叠次数很可能高达几十次甚至上百次，折叠屏手机不仅价格贵，而且正常寿命很可能只有短短的一两年。”通信产业专家项立刚分析。

　　价格居高难下，则是折叠屏的另一大短板。三星Galaxy Fold售价1980美元，而华为Mate X折叠屏手机全球最贵，约为1.7万元人民币。即便是柔宇最低配的折叠屏手机，价格也要8999元，远超华为、苹果、三星等大牌厂商的主流旗舰机售价。“太贵了，还不见得好用。为什么一定要用折叠屏？”多位消费者表示，对折叠屏手机会长期观望。

　　在《通信世界》总编辑刘启诚看来，折叠屏手机只是大屏手机概念的延展，未来能否成为市场主流，要看5G时代能否有新业态或新应用来支撑。“在重量、耗电量、价格、防水性和耐用性等主要指标上，折叠屏相较单屏手机五六年内都会‘稳居劣势’，这期间折叠屏手机很可能只是作为一种高端机类型的小众产品。”他认为。