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China Aims for the Foldable Phone Market with Multiple Foldable Phone Launches

Samsung Electronics widely successful release of its foldable phones, Galaxy Z Fold 3 and Flip 3 last year has risen expectations for establishing foldable phones into the mainstream. Chinese companies such as Huawei, Xiaomi, Oppo are also releasing multiple foldable phones.

As the first foldable phone in China, Huawei has been releasing the Mate X series every year since its launch in 2019. The Mate X and the Mate Xs released in 2020 are 8 inches in size and folds outward. The external display is 6.6 inches with a resolution of 1148×2480 and an aspect ratio of 19.5:9.

Mate X2 was introduced in February 2021 with 8 inches for the internal display and the external display is 6.45 inches OLED with a resolution of 1160 x 2700 and an aspect ratio of 21:9. Colorless PI was applied to the cover window. Mate X2 folds inward instead of Mate X’s outward folding display.

P50 Pocket released in December 2021 is a clamshell phone similar to the Samsung Flip 3. The internal display is 6.9 inches with 120Hz refresh rate and an aspect ratio of 21:9. The cover window is 1.1 inches circular type.

Honor released a foldable phone, Magic V on January 10th 2022.

The internal display is 8 inches with 90Hz refresh rate and the external display is 6.5 inches with 120Hz refresh rate. The cover window is colorless PI. Both internal and external panels are made in BOE B11(Mianyang) line. The initial production is estimated to be 50,000 and the estimated total production volume is 100,000 to 200,000.

According to the sales result, the Visionox panel might be applied to the product.

Vivo is about to release a new foldable, the NEX FOLD. Vivo filed patents for NEX FOLD, NEX ROLL, and NEX SLIDE.

NEX fold’s internal display is 8.03 inches with QHD 120Hz and the external display is 6.53 inches with FHD 120Hz. Both internal and external display has the same refresh rate. The display panel is Samsung Display’s LTPO, and the cover window is planned to be 30 um thickness UTG.

It is planned to be released in March 2022, but no official announcement has been made.

Samsung Display is using UTG(Ultra Thin Glass) for the cover window and most Chinese panel companies are using Colorless PI. Many Chinese companies are introducing foldable phones, but durability issues are reported on many social network media posts. Chinese panel makers still have much to go in terms of quality in technology and production cost when compared to Samsung Display.

Galaxy S9 – Curious about Samsung’s strategy to launch Foldable Phone

Interests in Galaxy S9 and Note 9, which will be released soon, are growing. There are a lot of people who want to figure out in advance the features of Foldable Phone, which Samsung announced to be launched within this year, through Galaxy S9 and Note9. However, it is impossible to predict the specifications of the Foldable Phone with the contents that have been opened so far.

In general, Galaxy S9 does not seem to be much different, compared to the previous S8. The front fingerprint sensor, which has been anticipated since last year, may not apply, and it seems to adopt iris recognition and fingerprint sensor at the back side. Unlike the S8, which was noticed in the name of Infinity Display, it will not expect much different concept in the design part. The CPU will be equipped with Samsung’s Exynos 9810 chip, except for the US model.

So what is the strategy of the Galaxy series this year? Some say that iPhoneX’s sales volume is a failure, but if you consider adding iPhoneX to the 3-model lineup in the new 2-model lineup, Apple’s overall performance is a success. In the meantime, there seems to require a new strategy for the Galaxy flagship model, which was dominated by superior image quality with adopting OLED display.  The Galaxy S9 appears to have little change, except for a slight improvement in performance. Therefore, it is curious whether it might be Samsung’s planned intention to concentrate on launching the Foldable Phone.

<Spec Comparison for Galaxy flagship models>