In 2023, the rise of folding screen phones is undoubtedly one of the most obvious trends in the domestic smartphone market.
In the first half of the year, the sales of folding screen mobile phones in the Chinese market increased by 72% year-on-year, of which the sales volume in the first quarter increased by 51% year-on-year, and the sales volume in the second quarter increased by 99% year-on-year, achieving positive year-on-year growth for 11 consecutive quarters.
Among them, Huawei continues to occupy half of it: IDC data shows that in the second quarter of 2023, the top five manufacturers in terms of market share are Huawei, vivo, OPPO, Samsung, and Honor. Among them, Huawei firmly occupies the first position in the domestic folding screen mobile phone market, with a market share of 430%。
Different from the precise segmentation needs found between fashion items and traditional straight smartphones for small folding mobile phones, now the large folding has reached a new high in sales driven by the market, and its own market positioning and user perception have actually quietly undergone subtle changes.
Under the surface of fierce competition in folding screens, it is actually the reality of head-to-head competition between folding screen phones and straight-screen flagships in 2023;China has not only become the world's largest folding screen mobile phone market, but the total shipments of folding screen mobile phones are still surging at a rate of 199%, and the overall domestic smartphone shipments have decreased by 23% year-on-year.
Huawei's great strides in the folding screen market are based on the accumulation of technology bit by bit. This is not only the reason why Huawei's Meta X5 continues to be in short supply, but also Huawei's executive director and CEO of the terminal business, Yu Chengdong, said that the strongest folding screen mobile phone depends on Huawei's confidence.
The industry believes that the folding screen mobile phone market at the end of 2023 will enter a more fierce chasing battle. This makes Huawei's achievements in the field of folding screens more noteworthy today. The market has sent the folding screen to a new peak in sales, and at the same time, it has also re-opened more users to examine a long-standing problem Why do I need to change to a folding screen phone?
Nearly fifteen years after the creation of straight-screen smartphones, folding phones are now experiencing their own iPhone moments, even without Apple's involvement;The concept of the barrel effect has become an effective law for evaluating folding screen mobile phones: the shortest board in the software and hardware of mobile phones directly determines the upper limit of the overall experience.
After the trend of folding screen replacement and the trend of the mobile phone stock market are superimposed, the reasons that can impress users to change their phones have become more realistic: users are no longer willing to pay for the selling point update of the show-off technology, and what can impress the flagship users of the straight screen must be a better daily experience.
Nowadays, with the investment of domestic brands in folding screen technology, it has entered the fifth generation of hardware iteration cycle, and China has built the world's most complete folding screen hardware system, and the technical reserves have also made the overall experience of folding screen mobile phones rise.
However, the new problem that comes with it is that the relatively slow progress of the software adaptation experience has become the new shortest board of folding screen mobile phones: when mobile phone brands release folding screen mobile phones, they always introduce the adaptation of software in their own operating systems, but in fact, it is often difficult to touch the core problem, and it is also difficult to adapt tens of thousands of mainstream applications on the market one by one through their own R&D teams.
For example, even though most Android folding screen phones have followed up the same application first proposed by Huawei, the interactive logic of parallel vision displayed at different levels of content, it is difficult to effectively unify the various adaptation methods, and a large number of applications not only cannot benefit from the new form of folding screen, but due to the change of screen ratio, the user experience that is still above the passing line is affected.
In response to this problem, Huawei's solution is a complete set of HarmonyOS folding screen app adaptation guides for developers' referenceOn the basis of maximizing the advantages of its own operating system, HarmonyOS has released a complete developer specification on the adaptation of foldable screen applications on its official website, detailing many key elements of foldable screen app design, including:
Interaction should not be inconvenient due to the large screen.
The display information is complete, and the information in the expanded state is not less than 3 4 of the key information
The folding screen should not disrupt the app's original immersive experience.
harmonyos 4.0 Folding Screen Development Specifications HarmonyOS Developer Guide Official Website.
For users of straight-screen mobile phones, some of the content mentioned in these interactive guides will even be a little confusing, but for users who have tried the early folding screen system experience, these are the system shortcomings that will be most obviously felt when they first switch to the folding screen, which directly determines the upper limit of the experience of the entire mobile phone.
Such a problem is very obvious on many Android folding screen phones: because even if the folding screen phone has been developed for several generations, there are still a large number of existing applications that have not adapted to the folding screen mode, and although the Android folding screen implements similar functions, the different adaptation specifications of each one have become the main reason to reduce the willingness of developers to adapt.
The starting point is different, and the end point is naturally very different: in the folding screen experience of Huawei Mate X5, there is not only Douyin that can be similar to Douyin that can be swiped while swiping**, but also Xiaohongshu, which is adapted to the large screen and can display four columns of notes on one screen. In addition, many popular apps such as Douyin, League of Legends, iQiyi, and Tencent Meeting have been adapted to the Huawei Mate X5, allowing users to use these apps on large screens in a more comfortable way.
For Huawei, which continues to lead in folding screen mobile phone shipments, these have been directly reflected in the high penetration rate of the folding screen market, especially for software developers, adapting to the folding screen specification of HarmonyOS directly means that more than 30% of folding screen mobile phone users can experience better software interaction, which naturally benefits from the concept of open and inclusive ecological construction.
This year, Huawei has made the traditional pain point of the folding screen - reliability, as the top priority, Huawei Mate X5 Collector's Edition is equipped with the previously famous Xuanwu tempered Kunlun glass outer screen, with the second-generation Kunlun glass technology and Xuanwu tempering technology, so that the folding screen mobile phone screen that has always shown a fragile appearance has excellent scratch resistance, drop resistance, and impact resistance.
At the same time, the inner screen of the Huawei Mate X5 uses the industry's unique impact-resistant non-Newtonian fluid material, which brings the impact resistance effect of being strong and weak when weak, and for the first time, IPX8-level waterproof capability has been added, achieving a reliability comparable to that of a straight-screen mobile phone.
In addition to the real pain points that need to be solved, some users may pay more attention to some small details in daily use: if the existing pain points of the folding screen are to make up for the replacement of the shortest board in the barrel, then a little improvement of the itch point is a further lengthening of those slightly shorter shortcomings.
For example, with the increase of mobile phone screens, users' needs for mobile phones have also changed: research shows that folding screen users not only prefer to read e-books, comics and other content on mobile phones, but also with the natural hardware attributes of folding screens, the demand for taking pictures and ** has also become more, which makes the quality of mobile phone screens quickly become a new challenge that many people in the industry have never expected.
For example, the Huawei Mate X5 uses a pixel density of 426PPI on both the inner and outer screens, and both support 10With 700 million colors, a wide P3 color gamut, and a peak brightness of 1800nit, it is also a very easy experience for users who often use folding screens to read, and it is also very easy to read the content of the screen in the sun. And the actual color display is accurate and rich, and the visual effect is lifelike. Whether it is unfolded or folded, it ensures a unified reading experience.
At the same time, Huawei Mate X5 has also added a series of air gesture operations, such as users can control the phone to swipe up and down and take screenshots without touching the screen when watching short ** on platforms such as Douyin and Xiaohongshu, so that the interaction of the folding screen has been improved. Moreover, the Huawei Mate X5 has achieved the left side to see** and the right side to swipe the comments, which is in line with the actual entertainment habits of the public who like to read the comments while brushing.
In terms of office software such as Tencent Meeting, the Huawei Mate X5 has also achieved a more suitable adaptation to workplace habits. Tencent Meeting supports the hover function of Huawei Mate X5, in the hover state, the upper screen displays the ** conference interface, and the lower screen is the operation interface, which does not affect the display of the ** interface, which greatly facilitates the meeting operation.
In addition, in the high-end user group represented by the folding screen flagship mobile phone, privacy protection is also an important but often overlooked feature before. In addition to ensuring users' information security and privacy through cloud backup and encryption of stored data, Huawei has also announced a mutually beneficial and win-win plan with developer partners to enable more applications to have the ability to obtain data protection on the Huawei Mate X5.
Fortune magazine has published a list of the world's 100 greatest modern designs, including not only hardware products such as iPhones and iPods, but also software such as the App Store and WeChat. At the same time, a new proposition is proposed: the standard of good design of modern intelligent hardware has gradually evolved from the perspective of product aesthetics to whether it can continue to better achieve specific purposes and functions, and bring continuous impact on users and society.
This criterion for judging innovation, for the current folding screen mobile phone, is actually these unobtrusive, but can really bring improvements to the user's daily experience: whether it is Kunlun glass, Beidou call, or HarmonyOS 4, XMAGE image and other functions, they are all part of the continuation of the design concept of making folding screens easier to use.
This concept can also be seen on Huawei's larger screen:Mate X5Huawei smart screen released at the same timeV5 Pro,Although the positioning seems to be closer to the traditional concept of TV,But with the help of Huawei Hongmeng ecology and Lingxi pointing remote control technology,Whether it is in application installation or use experience,You can find the shadow of Huawei's optimization for the large screen use experience,In addition to being supplemented by the ability of the TV itself,You can even use it in Huawei Zhihui screenV5 Pro I experienced a similar experience to the folding screen to Xiaohongshu and Douyin.
Before Hongmeng, there were very few domestic brands that could have this concept, and this idea of external compatibility with the ecology and internal interconnection of devices is the key to making the nascent Hongmeng ecology quickly gain the favorability of users and the recognition of developers.
Nowadays, judging a really easy-to-use folding screen mobile phone should be competitive enough, jump out of the folding screen framework, stand on the same starting line, and compete with the straight screen flagship.
A detail that many people may no longer remember is that Huawei is currently the only mobile phone manufacturer that has commercialized all three mainstream forms of folding screen and carried out technical exploration, which not only means huge research and development costs, but also the cornerstone of Huawei's folding screen product strength.
Even though these products have imperfections, the explosion of technologies that seem to the outside world today, such as Kunlun glass and impact-resistant flexible inner screens, is essentially just the result of Huawei's years of adherence to basic skills.
The basic skills here not only refer to technical strength, but also to the ultimate pursuit of user experience in every link.
2023 is not only the first year of the so-called folding screen, but also the fifth anniversary of Huawei's folding screen mobile phone, Huawei Mate X5 is the intersection of the two, with the power of a brand, handed over the strength of the five years of exploration in the three forms of folding screen, weight, reliability and other directions. Many of the advantages of the Huawei Mate X5 are what a good smartphone should be.
If you want to answer the question of why do I need a folding screen phone, I will think that the success of Huawei Mate X5 can say a lot: the era when folding screens were classified as a special market no longer exist, only more basic skills have been paid attention to, and consumers have been given a good experience at all levels such as hardware reliability and software adaptation, so that the experience of using folding screen phones can be truly improved or even greatly surpassed by the straight-screen flagship, and users will pay higher for such products.
The more competitive the years, the more it can highlight the importance of the basic skills of the product, and the more it can highlight the correctness of the current path taken by Huawei's folding screen.