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Home , BOE Technology, Flexible display, ZTE

16 | Friday, February 22, 2019 DAILY BUSINESS firms eye foldable bonanza

Domestic demand set to surge as more users shift to portable, bigger devices

By FAN FEIFEI , Sichuan province, is set [email protected] to start mass production this year, while work on the third facility com- Domestic flexible display panel menced in last year. makers are set to witness explosive While companies are bullish growth in the next few years as lead- about market prospects, industry ing vendors ramp up analysts remained guarded on the efforts to roll out new products like prospects for foldable products. foldable phones to bolster sagging According to CITIC Securities, fortunes. 2019 will be the first year of applica- Buoyed by the prospects, compa- tion for foldable and flexible screens nies are already scaling up capaci- and OLED panel shipments will ties in segments like flexible screens cross 1 million units. However, com- used for mobile devices and smart panies may still face considerable wearables, according to industry challenges as steep prices could sources. These include active affect popularity. matrix/organic light-emitting dio- IHS Markit, another market des or and organic light- research firm, expects BOE to be the emitting diodes used for displays. world’s largest supplier of AMOLED BOE Technology Group Co Ltd, a display panels this year, with ship- -based supplier of display ments of foldable panels set to reach products and solutions, said in 50 million by 2025. December that it is planning to The optimism has already led to a build a new sixth-generation flexi- surge in the prices of OLED-related ble AMOLED production line in stocks, such as BOE, Visionox Co , Fujian province, with a Ltd, Lingyi iTech, Triumph Science total investment of 46.5 billion yuan and Technology, with most of the ($6.9 billion). shares hitting the daily price limits. “The flexible AMOLED display South Korean tech giant brings more possibilities to a Electronics Co Ltd currently domi- phone’s appearance,” said Zhang Yu, nates the global AMOLED sector, senior vice-president of BOE. with a 90 percent market share. AMOLEDs are more flexible with However, experts say LCD screens faster responses, high contrast and would still be the main revenue wide visual angles, compared to tra- driver for companies. Although DJ Koh, president and CEO of the IT and Mobile Communications division at , unveils the new ditional liquid crystal display, or OLED products will see rapid smartphone in San Francisco, the , on Wednesday. AP LCD, panels. But they are in short growth, around 60 to 70 percent of supply and hence have huge market the existing mobile phones still use Visionox, another OLED-focused strates (1,500 mm by 1,850 mm) such as in , computers, play phones on Wednesday, four potential, due to the absence of LCD screens. It will still take some company, has two sixth-generation every month, and meet the high- smart wearables, vehicles, smart days earlier than its rival competition. time for foldable devices to gain flexible AMOLED display screen pro- end, foldable screen demand for 90 homes, virtual reality and augment- Technologies Co Ltd. BOE has three sixth-generation traction, they said. duction lines in Gu’an, Hebei prov- million smartphones. ed reality. Ha Jiqing, a senior analyst from flexible AMOLED production lines Wu Shuyuan, an analyst at Bei- ince, and in Anhui province. Visionox started building its sec- “Flexible AMOLED screens will Beijing-based consultancy All View at present. It started mass produc- jing-based market research firm The company, which provides ond production line in Hefei in be everywhere in the future.” Cloud, said: “Sales of foldable tion of the panels from its facility in Sigmaintell Consulting, said: “Ship- flexible screens for smartphone December. “The new line, with an Demand for foldable phones is huge phones will not be very high this , Sichuan province, in ments of domestically-made flexible maker Corp’s new foldable investment of 44 billion yuan, will as they have large screens and are year as companies are just testing October 2017. The panels have AMOLED screens are still in the ini- phone, was carved out of the OLED have a monthly capacity of 30,000 portable, she said. the product. We will have to wait already been used by more than 10 tial stages. Companies need to research team at Tsinghua Universi- substrates, similar to our first line “Visionox will focus on independ- and see if consumers adapt to such smartphone manufacturers includ- improve their yield rate capacities ty and has been engaged in the sec- in Hebei,” said Yang Shujuan, gen- ent innovation and team with other phones.” ing Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, and reduce production costs.” tor for more than two decades. Its eral manager at Visionox’s brand companies in the industrial chain to Higher power consumption by Electronics Corp, Vivo Mobile Wu said sales of foldable devices AMOLED display screen produc- center. produce flexible products, which the large screen will affect the bat- Communication Technology Co, would be hampered by the supply tion line in Gu’an, which involved an Yang said with the development of include but are not limited to tery life. Moreover, the hinge, a Xiaomi Corp, ZTE Corp and Nubia chain, costs and other factors, investment of nearly 30 billion , the internet of things and artifi- curved surfaces, and folding devi- mechanical design that allows the Technology Co Ltd. thereby restricting them to a niche yuan, went into operation last year. cial intelligence, the flexible AMOL- ces,” Yang said. flexible panel to fold and unfold is The company’s second line in market. It can turn out 30,000 glass sub- EDs will have wider application, Samsung unveiled its foldable dis- expensive, said Ha. Beijing launches $4.4b plan to gain edge in commercialization of 5G tech

By MA SI through the collaborative applica- emerging industries to earn more [email protected] tion of smart sensors, and than 1 trillion yuan,” the Beijing other technologies in medical municipal government said in a The Beijing municipal govern- equipment and treatment systems. statement. ment’s plan to invest at least 30 bil- Remote consultation, tele-imag- The move came as China is lion yuan ($4.44 billion) by 2022 to ing, remote ultrasound, tele-sur- scrambling to commercialize 5G, a build 5G networks will help the gery, and other services will be technology that is expected to be at capital gain a lead in commercializ- piloted in areas around the Beijing least 10 times faster than 4G and ing the superfast technology and 2022 Winter Olympics arenas, Bei- will support superfast movie expedite pioneering applications jing subcenter in the city’s downloads, the streaming of virtu- such as self-driving vehicles and Tongzhou district and other al reality games, and self-driving remote healthcare, experts said. regions. cars. The country’s telecom carri- Xiang Ligang, a telecom expert Fu Liang, an independent ana- ers , and CEO of industry website lyst who has been following the tel- and are all conduct- Cctime, said Beijing boasts a sound ecom industry for more than a ing 5G tests in a string of cities, ena- base in tech enterprises and tal- decade, said Beijing has a unique bling large-scale pre-commercial ents, and coupled with the new edge in self-driving vehicles, as it use this year. favorable policies, they will help houses leading companies includ- China is expected to have 576 drive the city to the forefront of ing Baidu Inc, Didi Chuxing, and million 5G users by 2025, or more Customers check prices of food products on a touch screen at a supermarket in Hangzhou, Zhejiang China’s advances in the application JD. than 40 percent of global con- province. LONG WEI / FOR of next-gen technology. Beijing said it hopes that by 2022, sumption, according to a report “It is worth noting that Beijing Beijing-based scientific research released by global consultancy EY. attaches huge importance to units and enterprises can be an Other first — tier cities including Big data to reshape economic landscape breakthrough in high-end 5G com- important contributor to global 5G Shanghai and are also ponents, which is the primary and technical standards, accounting for hammering out ambitious 5G essential foundation for a thriving more than 5 percent of all primary development plans, Even central By FAN FEIFEI the country should make efforts to In addition, Hunan has formulat- telecom industrial chain,” Xiang and essential international 5G pat- and western regions are also jump- establish all-in-one big data plat- ed six measures to boost the big data said. ents. It also aims to achieve break- ing on the bandwagon. Jiangxi Core industries in China’s big data forms and effective mechanisms industry, such as cultivating enter- In Beijing’s guideline for 5G throughs in key technologies and province, for instance, plans to cov- sector could earn more than 720 bil- for data management, Wei added. prises engaged in big data industry, development from 2019 to 2022, processes for the production of er its major cities and towns with lion yuan ($106.3 billion) this year, Officials in Guizhou province said as well as promoting research and which was released recently, the medium-and-high-frequency com- 5G networks by 2023. said a report on the sector’s outlook they will boost the output value of development and innovative appli- municipal government prioritized ponents above 6 GHz. A report by the China Academy from think tank CCID. big data, electronic information and cations of big data technologies and the task of tackling bottlenecks in “The city’s 5G industry will real- of Information and Communica- China’s big data sector will wit- other industries to over 100 billion products. the research and development of ize an income of about 200 billion tion Technology also forecast that ness 25 to 30 percent growth in yuan this year, as well as accelerate The sales revenue of big data medium-and-high-frequency radio yuan by 2022, driving the informa- 5G will drive 6.3 trillion yuan of eco- 2019, facilitating the transforma- the development of intelligent ter- industry in Hunan is expected to frequency devices, an essential tion service industry and other nomic output in the nation by 2030. tion and upgrading of regional minal manufacturing and support- surpass 100 billion yuan by 2021, component in 5G telecom gears. economic structures, the report ing facilities. with a compound annual growth It will build a 5G medium-and- said. It will also focus on the develop- rate of over 30 percent in the next high-frequency RF device industry Apart from East China where the ment of electronic components and three years, according to the local innovation center, and set up 5G sector is flourishing, Southwest Chi- materials, and foster the develop- authority. core device technology develop- na’s Sichuan and Guizhou provinces ment of integrated circuits and new A booming digital economy is ment platform to encourage and and Chongqing municipality are display industries. reshaping China’s economic land- facilitate product analysis, verifica- expected to be front-runners for Since 2015, China International scape as technology such as artifi- tion and testing. new growth, according to the report. Big Data Industry Expo has been held cial intelligence, big data and As part of Beijing’s broader push As part of the development of the for four times in Guiyang, capital city cloud computing revives tradi- to leverage 5G to improve urban digital economy, China is accelerat- of Guizhou province. Last year, the tional industries and casts new management and living, it will step ing the integration of big data and expo attracted over 40,000 partici- light on high-quality development. up the push to accelerate the appli- the real economy, said Wei Kai, a pants from nearly 30 countries. China’s big data sector aims to cation of ultra-high-definition live researcher with the China Academy As China’s first big data pilot zone, increase its annual sales to 1 tril- video, autonomous driving, cloud- of Information and Communication the mountainous province of Guiz- lion yuan by 2020 from an estimat- based robot management, auto- Technology. hou has attracted heavyweight ed 280 billion yuan in 2015, said a mated logistics, and drones by Wei said the development of big firms, including Apple, , plan released by the Ministry of building large-scale ultrafast net- data in China is still unbalanced, such Huawei, Tencent, Alibaba and Fox- Industry and Information Tech- works. as unbalanced business types and conn, to establish cloud computing nology. In the much-expected medical uneven geographical distribution. and big data centers as well as area, 5G technology will realize A China Mobile employee in Beijing explains how 5G technologies To maximize the use of big data, regional headquarters. Xinhua contributed to the story. remote healthcare services can be used for long-distance driving. LEI KESI / FOR CHINA DAILY