The foldable phone business has just started. It may be three years since the first foldable smartphone, the Royole Flexpai, became commercially available but there are now a few competitors. Well, only Samsung is flourishing with the Galaxy Z Fold and the Galaxy Z Flip series but we believe more OEMS are also working on their entries. There’s Huawei, Motorola, and Xiaomi that have already released their entries. In the coming year, we can expect more brands will venture into the same category.
The Samsung Display team is said to get busier as more orders are expected to come in. The foldable display business will be expanding. The future screens may also include a reinforced UTG to be used on the foldable OLED displays.
When it comes to the numbers, shipments may double soon. The OLED module will be in demand more and only a few companies can deliver.
Samsung has been working with the Douinsys team. The latter is a Samsung Display division that works on the ultra-thin glass. The goal is to have the UTG further strengthened as the foldable line will be expanding. Joining the effort is SCHOTT which is a Germany company that also specializes in displays.
The prediction is that Samsung Display will deliver 8.1 million units of foldable OLED screens this year alone. Next year, it will go up to 18 million units. This tells us more people are considering foldable phones.
The numbers may not just be for the Galaxy Z series but we won’t be surprised if they’re only for Samsung. Next year, we’ll see the Galaxy Z Fold 4 which is expected to be more advanced than ever.
Other OEMs have yet to catch up though. At this point, Samsung is number one when it comes to foldable devices. It has several potential rivals but nothing has succeeded, at least, not yet.
Huawei’s foldable phones are supplied by BOE. It’s the same with Honor but with the addition of Visionox. In China, there’s also CSOT working on foldable displays.
