Honor Thy Foldable
On Monday we noted that Chinese OLED panel producer Visionox (002387.CH) had received a substantial order from Honor (pvt), the former Huawei sub-brand that was recently separated from its founder in order to avoid the trade restrictions placed on Huawei by the US government. While the order we mentioned was for flexible displays and touch components, we expect that the relationship between the two companies will continue, as Honor is expected to source foldable displays from Visionox for its first entry into the foldable device market.
Honor is expected to release the “Magic X”, its first foldable in the 2nd half of the year, one of a number of smartphone brands that have either indicated that they have such products under development or are in the process of qualifying components. Currently 5 smartphone brands have released foldable smartphones, with Samsung the leader, heading into the release of its 3rd generation Galaxy Fold later this year. While Motorola has focused on the more compact '‘flip” type foldable, (Samsung also has such a device), others have taken more of a ‘phablet’ approach, with what are normal sized smartphones when closed, opening up to tablet size.
Among those that have yet to release a foldable smartphone is China’s TCL (000100.CH), who has shown a wide variety of demos and prototypes as part of their ‘fold and roll’ development project. TCL has developed an unusual hinge system that it combines with a rollable OLED display, which allows the phone to be unfolded and then further expanded by pulling out the rolled portion. The concept here is that while this is a bit thicker than a normal smartphone, it allows a normal sized phone to expand to 8.85 inches, but can expand further to become a full 10” tablet, larger than any existing smartphone foldables. TCL has also shown a 3 way folding device, using the same proprietary hinge system, and while the company has not promised to convert any of these demos into actual products (in our lifetime), they are quite adamant about entering the foldable space. As TCl is the parent of Chinastar (pvt), we would expect they would at least have a pole position as a supplier for such a product.
Honor is expected to release the “Magic X”, its first foldable in the 2nd half of the year, one of a number of smartphone brands that have either indicated that they have such products under development or are in the process of qualifying components. Currently 5 smartphone brands have released foldable smartphones, with Samsung the leader, heading into the release of its 3rd generation Galaxy Fold later this year. While Motorola has focused on the more compact '‘flip” type foldable, (Samsung also has such a device), others have taken more of a ‘phablet’ approach, with what are normal sized smartphones when closed, opening up to tablet size.
Among those that have yet to release a foldable smartphone is China’s TCL (000100.CH), who has shown a wide variety of demos and prototypes as part of their ‘fold and roll’ development project. TCL has developed an unusual hinge system that it combines with a rollable OLED display, which allows the phone to be unfolded and then further expanded by pulling out the rolled portion. The concept here is that while this is a bit thicker than a normal smartphone, it allows a normal sized phone to expand to 8.85 inches, but can expand further to become a full 10” tablet, larger than any existing smartphone foldables. TCL has also shown a 3 way folding device, using the same proprietary hinge system, and while the company has not promised to convert any of these demos into actual products (in our lifetime), they are quite adamant about entering the foldable space. As TCl is the parent of Chinastar (pvt), we would expect they would at least have a pole position as a supplier for such a product.
TCL Fold and Roll Concept Smartphone - Source: TCL
RSS Feed