Apple New Patent Activates 3D Glass Sapphire

Nanjing Hua News: iPhone7 the day of public release is getting closer and closer, Apple has released a new signal in the patent layout-the combination of OLED curved screen and sapphire will become an important appearance innovation of Apple's next-generation products.

Recently, the United States Patent and Trademark Office announced a new patent submitted by Apple "sapphire coating solution for electronic devices", which seems to verify the news that the market will adopt the design concept of curved screen sapphire glass panel for iPhone 8. This is a new technology that adds sapphire coating to the screen of electronic devices, and the service object is electronic devices equipped with OLED screens. Adding a sapphire coating to the screen can further increase the scratch resistance of devices such as the iPhone.

Apple has always favored sapphire materials, but due to production capacity problems, sapphire screens have not been used as scheduled, while Samsung's application of OLED curved screen technology has widened the gap with Apple's market share. According to the analysis of several brokerage research reports, Apple has regained its share in the smartphone field, trying to use OLED touch screen, 3D glass and other combined appearance innovations. Sapphire coating will be an important protective innovation for 3D glass. In 3D glass and sapphire technology, Ored has formed a mature and multi-faceted layout.

iPhone bets on 3D glass, sapphire

Apple has devoted a lot of research and development efforts to sapphire materials, which has led to the rise of the global sapphire industry. The market has long expected that Apple's new products will gradually increase the application of sapphire. Data show that in the fourth quarter of 2015, iPhone shipments reached 0.2315 billion units, a record high in history. At present, Apple's iPhone shipments have exceeded 0.8 billion units. If Apple's new mobile phone products use sapphire materials, sapphire materials will bring significant market space.

In the first half of the year, Samsung's use of OLED curved screens led to more than 20 million sales of Samsung S7 series products in a single quarter. In the second quarter of this year, Samsung Electronics smartphones topped the list with a market share of 21.4, further widening the gap with second-place Apple (11.2 per cent).

Backward Apple is trying to catch up. The market predicts that Apple will adopt OLED screen and 3D glass back cover with high certainty in 2017. Apple also clearly recognizes that OLED screens and 3D glass materials have short boards in terms of scratch resistance. Apple's patent application for sapphire coating makes the next generation of products more certain about the use of OLED screens and 3D glass. The appearance innovation of smart phones also depends on Apple. The innovation of Apple and Samsung in appearance technology will inevitably drive mobile phone enterprises including Huawei and Xiaomi to follow suit.

According to the analysis of the securities firm's research report, affected by the success of Samsung's hyperboloid products and the expectation that Apple's new machines will adopt glass casings in 2017, domestic OEM manufacturers have gradually shifted their focus from integrally formed metal casings to 3D glass casings. It can be seen that sapphire will become a popular concept of A shares through the wide application of smart phone screens such as Apple and Samsung, and related companies will also benefit from it.

Upstream in the supply chain, Chinese enterprises ushered in a big cake. On August 26, sapphire material leader Ored (600666,SH) issued a new fixed increase plan, to raise funds to 2 billion by non-public offering of shares, of which 1.171 billion yuan for the industrialization of zirconia ceramic components, 0.599 billion yuan for the new 3D glass hot bending machine industrialization project. After the project is put into production, Ored will form an annual production capacity of 2000 hot bending machines and 18 million ceramic mobile phone backplanes. At the same time, according to the research of Anxin Securities, the company's hot bending equipment has obvious advantages over South Korea enterprises in terms of production efficiency and cost.

At present, major domestic glass suppliers such as Foxconn, Bourne and Kolishi have increased the purchase of 3D hot bending machines. Prior to this, Ored and Huaying Technology (000536.SZ) signed a framework cooperation agreement. According to the agreement, the two sides will reach a strategic agreement on priority supply and procurement in the industrial chain of sapphire, ceramics, 3D hot bending glass, diamond-like coating, display screen and related equipment manufacturing. Ored's many customer resources in sapphire materials will become the main purchaser of 3D hot bending equipment.

Ored stands on the tuyere

According to data from Nanjing Huaxun, the entire sapphire market will maintain a compound growth rate of about 36% and is expected to reach US $4.944 billion in 2019. At present, Samsung OLED screen supply production is limited, the domestic use of OLED screen manufacturers face the risk of supply. With the advance of Apple's iPhone OLED application to 2017, the future OLED penetration process will accelerate significantly. The agency predicts that OLED is expected to account for 30% to 40% of the total display market in the next decade.

And Ored is also aware of the sapphire industry is in the development period, the future in the intelligent terminal application promotion potential is huge, and active layout. At present, Ored in the sapphire long crystal link large-scale production and single crystal furnace equipment manufacturing has an industry-leading advantage, and through the extension of the hard brittle material processing link, and gradually improve the layout of the whole industry chain.

The implementation of the multi-color nano-zirconia ceramic parts industrialization project and the new 3D glass hot bending machine industrialization project announced by Ored this time will take over the global market situation faced by South Korea and Japanese enterprises with higher production efficiency and price advantages, and become the biggest beneficiary of localization substitution in subdivided areas.

From the perspective of investment, Ored will make great efforts in new materials and new equipment in the future. With the help of the strong industrial strength of Northeast China, the material aspect will expand from sapphire crystal business to mobile phone cover plate, DLC, quantum dot film, etc. In terms of equipment, the development from single crystal furnace to 3D hot bending machine is expected to realize the sales of new star products and expand the sales scale of equipment in the future. For investors, the concept of sapphire glass boom strikes, the investment potential is huge, and the future development can be expected.