At 10:08 on February 25, Huawei MateX2 was officially launched for sale, priced from 17,999 yuan. Before the sale started, about 5 million people had made reservations on Huawei’s official mall and e-commerce platforms such as JD.com. After the launch of sales, Huawei's official mall and e-commerce platforms such as Tmall and JD.com all showed that this new product was sold out in seconds.
Wang Fang, chief analyst of the electronics industry at Minsheng Securities, believes that the trend of folding screens is unstoppable, and hinges and screens are still the focus of upgrades.
Huawei Managing Director and Consumer Business CEO Yu Chengdong said at a press conference on February 22 that Mate degree, so that there is no gap in the hinge part after folding.
Yu Chengdong said at the press conference that this double helix water drop hinge uses carbon fiber composite materials and high-strength steel. Among them, the carbon fiber composite material used in the hinge's supporting door panel reduces the weight by 75%; the strength of the super-strong steel can reach 2100MPa, which is 50% stronger than the steel used in the B-pillar of high-safety cars; the zirconium-based material used in the hinge center axis Liquid metal, material hardness increased three times.
Founder Securities analyst Chen Hang believes that the MateX2 released by Huawei will accelerate the popularity of folding phones. The internal folding solution of Huawei Mate The hinge is the most critical functional component to realize a foldable mobile phone, and it is also the most technologically advanced part of the foldable screen.
Who is the MIM supplier?
Founder Securities stated that the core technology of foldable screen mobile phones lies in the foldable screen, hinge and operating system. Folding screen hinges use many parts and are characterized by high complexity, high folding life requirements, and high product reliability requirements. The hinge BOM (bill of materials) cost mainly includes MIM (metal injection molding parts) precision processing, liquid metal raw materials, module assembly, etc.
The main business of Dongmu Co., Ltd. is divided into three major sectors: powder metallurgy press-formed parts (PM), metal injection molded parts (MIM) and soft magnetic composite materials (SMC). In 2019, Dongmu Co., Ltd. decided to quickly enter the MIM field through external mergers and acquisitions. In August 2019, the company acquired 61% equity of Dongguan Huajing for 110 million yuan. In December of the same year, the company acquired 14% of Dongguan Huajing's equity for 25.2 million yuan, bringing its shareholding ratio to 75%. In February 2020, the company acquired 75% of Fuchi Hi-Tech's equity for 1.039 billion yuan. Through these two mergers and acquisitions, Dongmu Co., Ltd. can quickly enter the consumer electronics industry and realize the company's strategic layout in the MIM industry.
Dongmu Co., Ltd. stated in its 2020 semi-annual report that during the reporting period, affected by the adjustment of sales strategies of international mainstream brands in consumer electronics and projects related to specific models of domestic mainstream brands, sales of consumer electronics products reached 518 million. Yuan, accounting for 39.18% of the company's main business income, of which Fuchi Hi-Tech's operating income from January to June 2020 was 473 million yuan (Fuchi Hi-Tech was included in the company's consolidated statements in March 2020, and its operating income from March to June was 3.78 billion).
In addition, in the first half of 2020, Dongmu Co., Ltd. registered and established Lianyungang Fuch Intelligent Manufacturing Technology Co., Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Fuch Hi-Tech, in Lianyungang City, Jiangsu Province. In August of that year, it entered into a partnership with Lianyungang Economic Co., Ltd. The Technology Development Zone Management Committee signed the "Lianyungang Economic and Technological Development Zone Land Project Investment Agreement" and plans to use its own or self-raised funds to purchase 210 acres of land use rights in the Lianyungang Economic and Technological Development Zone for the construction of an "automated production line for consumer electronics precision parts" Project", the project is expected to have a total investment of 1 billion yuan; it is planned to register and establish Guangdong Fuchi Intelligent Manufacturing Technology Co., Ltd. in Dongguan City to integrate the South China production base of MIM and consumer electronics.
According to media reports, after acquiring Dongguan Huajing and Fuchi Hi-tech, Dongmu Technology has become the largest supplier of MIM parts for Huawei mobile phones, and is also the core supplier of hinges for Huawei’s second folding screen mobile phone MateXs. business.
The person also said that in terms of MIM components for foldable screen mobile phones, the company has cooperated with major domestic mobile phone manufacturers and supplied supplies to major domestic mobile phone manufacturers.
He said that the company is optimistic about the MIM industry, otherwise it would not spend a lot of money to acquire Fuchi Hi-Tech and build a production base in Lianyungang.
Wang Huajun, an analyst at Zheshang Securities, believes that according to IHSMarkit forecasts, the global folding screen market will ship nearly 5.2 million units in 2020, and is expected to exceed 50 million units in 2025, with a compound growth rate of approximately 57% from 2020 to 2025. %. DisplaySearch predicts that folding screen mobile phones will flourish in 2021. Samsung, Xiaomi, vivo, OPPO, and Google will all have folding screen mobile phones. As one of the duopoly in the domestic MIM industry, Dongmu shares are expected to continue to benefit.
Who is the liquid metal supplier?
The MateX2 hinge BOM (bill of materials) cost also includes liquid metal. Liquid metal is an amorphous alloy, also known as metallic glass. It is a new metal material that combines the properties of glass, metal, solid and liquid. Due to the absence of defects such as dislocations, stacking faults, and grain boundaries, amorphous alloys exhibit special mechanical properties, and their bending strength, tensile strength, elastic deformation, etc. are superior to commonly used materials. Liquid metal has been widely used in consumer electronics, new energy automobile products, headphones, etc., and has begun to show broad application prospects in intelligent manufacturing, high-end sports equipment, aerospace, etc.
In a survey conducted by institutional investors in December 2020, Yi'an Technology stated that the company's liquid metal products have been applied in batches in folding mobile phone hinges, mobile phone optical brackets, door locks, acoustics and other products. The company provides two liquid metal hinges to the largest mobile phone terminal customers in China. The liquid metal FaceID brackets and camera modules produced by the company have been supplied in batches to well-known domestic mobile phone manufacturers such as Xiaomi and OPPO. The liquid metal locks are exclusively supplied to Tesla. The company is the only company in the world that applies liquid metal to the automotive industry. enterprise.
Yi'an Technology's annual reports over the years show that the company's liquid metal products revenue from 2016 to 2019 were 31.3085 million yuan, 53.8357 million yuan, 67.4526 million yuan, and 72.8081 million yuan respectively. In the first half of 2020, "the company's liquid metal product sales revenue was 70.9788 million yuan, an increase of 71.25% compared with the same period last year. The company has also been looking for and cultivating partners to jointly expand the liquid metal market." Yi An Technology said in a survey by institutional investors in December 2020.
Recently, Yi'an Technology responded to investors' questions on the investor interaction platform many times and stated that the company provides liquid metal hinges for the largest mobile phone terminals in the country, but it did not clearly state that it provided liquid metal hinges to Huawei.
The above-mentioned relevant person from the Securities Affairs Department of Yi'an Technology also stated that the performance of the company's liquid metal products in 2020 is not bad, better than that in 2019. For details, please refer to the 2020 annual report to be released later. If the customer's market is not affected by other factors, the company's liquid metal products will also have a relatively good development this year (2021).
In addition, Yi'an Technology has also signed cooperation agreements with a number of companies and governments to expand the industrial scale of liquid alloys. According to the company's announcement, in July 2019, the company's wholly-owned subsidiary Yi'an Liquid Metal signed a project investment framework agreement with the People's Government of Qingxi Town, Dongguan City, with a total investment of 380 million yuan to jointly build a liquid metal project; in March 2020 In March, the company signed a project cooperation investment agreement with Sanxiang Zirconium Magnesium, an industrial fund under Sanxiang New Materials (603663.SH), to jointly invest in amorphous alloy (liquid metal) projects at a ratio of 40%:60%, with a registered capital of 1 billion.
It is worth mentioning that Yi'an Technology intends to list its liquid metal business separately. "If there is an opportunity, the company will of course want to use the capital market platform to develop the liquid metal industry." Yi'an Technology said in a survey by institutional investors in December 2020.
Is the folding screen trend unstoppable?
2019 is the first year of folding screen products, and major brand manufacturers have since followed up and released them.
In terms of product form, the folding forms of mainstream folding screen mobile phones in the current market are roughly divided into three types: horizontal outward folding, horizontal inward folding and vertical folding. Currently, the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold series focuses on horizontal inward folding, and the Galaxy Z Flip series focuses on lightweight vertical folding. plan.
The CITIC Electronics team believes that folding screens will become a major trend in the development of the smartphone market in the future, and folding screen products from many manufacturers will be launched one after another in 2021. Under the leadership of Samsung, Huawei and other brands, the folding screen market has initially completed consumer education, and has made major breakthroughs in mass production, application ecology and other problems. It is about to usher in rapid growth. Apple is also actively developing folding screen products. research and development.
CITIC Securities also continues to be optimistic about the trend of folding mobile phones. It said that according to Omdia’s forecast, the shipment volume of foldable display panels is expected to increase from approximately 4.2 million units to 73.6 million units in 2020-2027. The market The penetration rate reaches 4.91%, and the CAGR reaches 150%. Huawei Mate
Chen Hang, an analyst at Founder Securities, believes that Huawei’s MATEX2 internal folding solution released this time will be the beginning of an epoch-making period for OLED folding screens to enter a period of heavy volume, opening up huge space for industry imagination.
Wang Fang, chief analyst of the electronics industry at Minsheng Securities, believes that the trend of folding screens is unstoppable, and hinges and screens are still the focus of upgrades. Foldable mobile phones have broken the screen-to-body ratio restriction in one fell swoop. Foldable mobile phones are the most important upgrade direction for the appearance of smartphones in the next three years. Compared with ordinary mobile phones, the BOM cost of foldable mobile phones has increased by about 30%, of which the display cost has increased by 70%, and the battery cost has increased by 70%. The cost of parts such as components and rotating shafts has increased by 120%. As selling prices gradually decrease in the future, terminal sales are expected to increase significantly, bringing a new round of growth to the industry chain.
Editor/Fan Hongwei