According to Korean media ET News, Samsung Electronics has applied for patents related to foldable smartphones in South Korea and the United States. It is expected that the company will announce a product roadmap for foldable smartphones in 2018.
According to the report, Samsung began to develop a smart phone with a folding display within five years ago. Now it has completed 80% of its manufacturing process research and development.
According to industry observers, Apple also applied for a certain number of clamshell smartphone patents, including a three-fold screen design patent. Observers said that Apple may also apply folding display technology to products other than smartphones. .
At the same time, according to the information published on the website of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), Huawei has applied for a single-screen patent that can be folded from it. The filing date of this patent application is September 2017.
Observers said that Huawei is expected to launch its first foldable smartphone by the end of 2018, and it will also be the first branded manufacturer to introduce such devices.
LG Electronics also submitted a patent application for collapsible smartphone design to WIPO in August 2017. LG's collapsible smartphone design requires two screens to be linked together to display the time when the screens are folded together. And battery power and other information.
Other major Chinese smart phone manufacturers, including OPPO, Huawei and ZTE, have joined the ranks of developing collapsible smartphones.
OPPO filed a patent application for collapsible smart phones with Chinese patent authorities in 2017 at the earliest, and filed more applications for related patents in 2018. At the same time, Lenovo exhibited a prototype of a collapsible smartphone. When the smartphone is turned on, the display can be extended from 5.5 inches to 7.8 inches. Lenovo has not yet announced the production schedule of the foldable smartphone.
ZTE displayed a prototype of a collapsible smartphone at the 2018 Mobile World Congress (MWC). The display consists of two panels connected; however, this is just a prototype concept machine and it is not really collapsible. model.
According to data from market research firm Strategy Analytics, global shipments of collapsible smart phones are expected to reach 700,000 units by 2019, and they will soar to 30.4 million units by 2021 and further increase to 50.1 million by 2022.