In 2022, more than one million Chinese folding screens were shipped, and in the third quarter of this year, Huawei held the No. 1 position in the domestic folding screen market with a 44.9 percent share, according to IDC, it shows the power of Huawei's fold-up phones.

According to the rankings, Huawei, Samsung, Vivo, Xiaomi and Glory have the top five market shares for folding screens in China, although Samsung, in second place, has just 22.2 per cent, about half the market share of Huawei.

｜智能手机低迷，折叠手机热销

According to IDC, although the overall smartphone market in China continues to show a downturn, the high-end market above US $600 has been less affected, with an overall share of 22.4 percent, up 1.9 percentage points year-on-year, it also rose 2.3 percent from the previous month. IDC China senior analyst Guo Tianxiang thinks Apple's“One-of-a-kind” situation is likely to be broken, “The strong Mate50 sales are a sign of Huawei's strong competitiveness at the high end of the market and there are already plans to expand MATE50 productivity in Huawei, which could lead to a significant increase in Q4 shipments.”

In addition, from the data point of view, folding screen products are also growing rapidly. In the third quarter, China's folding screens shipped more than 1M units in a single quarter, up about 246 per cent year-on-year, the largest single-quarter shipments on record. According to analysts, this is mainly due to a number of brands, a number of new products concentrated on the market, in the high-end market folding screen products to maintain a high-speed growth trend. Guo Tianxiang forecast that in 2022, the domestic folding screen market shipments should reach about 2.8 million class.

UTG glass is the best choice for folding screen covers

The world's lightest folding-screen phone relies on new hinge and UTG glass technology. It uses Shorter's UTG ultra-thin glass, which is only 30um thick, is still more than 2.25 times harder and more than 10 times stiffer than the CPI material, providing solid support for the entire screen. Combined with drop hinge and self-developed curvature technology, the average crease depth is less than 0.15 mm.

UTG Glass's unique advantages, but also let the major manufacturers began to fold the screen in mobile phones vigorously promoted. In fact, from 2020 onwards, some big factories began to use UTG instead of CPI.

The Samsung Galaxy Zflip is the first mobile phone with a folding screen that uses a UTG cover. Since then, the folding screen mobile phone market has focused on UTG, although UTG is more expensive, handset makers are still following suit to address the shortcomings of CPI screens.

With the folding screen models continue to enrich, the price continued to explore, the rapid growth of the market size is also expected to drive the cost reduction of UTG. Some manufacturers of mobile phone parts have increased their crop power rate to 100% , thanks to the popularity of folding machines on the market, the Korea economic daily reported.

Samsung said it had pre-ordered about 970,000 units of the Galaxy Z Fold 4/Flip4 from August 16 to 22, another record. UTG glass is currently the best option for folding panel covers, but the technology barrier is also the highest, so only a small number of manufacturers can make UTG, CINNO research said, citing industry producer Tomi, shorter, Germany and Khang Ninh are now the leading suppliers of raw glass materials for UTG ultra-thin glass manufacturing.

Folding screen phones enter UTG glass from 1 to n deep water areas riding the wind

After four years of development, the current folding screen mobile phone has achieved a breakthrough from 0 to 1, resolving many hard injuries, now, the folding screen phone was basically the same as the straight-panel flagship phone in terms of performance, taking photos, battery life, and lightness. The next step was to develop the folding screen experience from 1 to n.

In this process, UTG glass will be one of the core of the folding screen supply chain, it will gradually replace the CPI film, with high hardness, scratch resistance, high light transmittance, and reduce creases as much as possible, let the screen look like a complete and flawless whole, inside and outside the screen switching experience consistent.

As folding-screen phones evolve, so will UTG. German Shorter UTG glass production has 30 microns thick, and even made 16 microns in the laboratory, UTG processing industry chain is also improving. Research shows that UTG glass is expected to create a $20 billion market by 2025, with 80% of folding screens using UTG glass.