Battle of the Decades, VCM Motor Duel 2023

When we meet, the brave win.

More than halfway through 2023, the spring breeze of the global smartphone market has not arrived yet. According to market data, 525 million smartphones were shipped globally in the first half of the year, down 72.77 million units year-on-year.

According to the shipment statistics from a number of mobile phone supply chain enterprises, the market situation in the second half of this year will be slightly better than the first half, but it is probably only comparable to the same period last year.

With ten years of force, domestic VCM motor has finally secured the high-end of the brand mobile phone supply chain, but there is no slack and breathing space, and a new round of industry reshuffle has been ushered in.

According to Chaodian think tank, Zhongblue Electronics has made concrete progress in a number of high-end mobile phone projects. Combined with the shipment data of the first half of the year, the blue electronics has been infinite close to the top of the Alps, this year is completely likely to represent the domestic motor for the first time to reach the world's first throne.

Market reliable news, Huawei, Xiaomi, OPPO, vivo and other first-line mobile phone brands will release a number of flagship new products in the second half of the year, of which the image system is still the core theater. It is not an exaggeration to say that this may be the most important and even the last opportunity for some motor manufacturers.

Between the ebb and flow, the mobile phone camera motor supply power chart will be rewritten in 2023.

01 Ten Years of War

From the "China Cool Union" in 2013 to the current "Huami Ov Rong" pattern, the decade of national brand mobile phone iteration is also the decade of domestic VCM motor advancement.

Haige, a senior expert engaged in the motor industry for more than 10 years, recalled at the beginning, "Before the rise of 'China Cool Union', the mobile phone VCM motor market was completely monopolized by Japanese and Korean companies."

In 2013, domestic VCM motor manufacturers mushroomed, and the number peaked at 73 in 2016.

In 2018, in the AF open loop motor market, Japanese and Korean manufacturers, which have been at a high level, chose to give up orders from domestic terminal manufacturers because of price and profit reasons, and China motor power seized the opportunity to undertake a large area of market share and grew vigorously.

Also in this year, represented by Huawei and Xiaomi, Chinese mobile phone brands became famous around the world.

China Blue Electronics, New Thinking, Haoze, Bilu and other domestic motors have taken advantage of the trend to fully enter the supply chain of mainstream Chinese mobile phone brands such as Huawei, Xiaomi, OPPO and vivo, and quickly replace TDK, ALPS, MITSUMI and other overseas manufacturers in the middle and low-end product lines.

However, the long-term absence of high-end markets has been the regret of domestic motors. Until the last two years, manufacturers such as Zhonglan Electronics and New thinking have successively pry open the supply door of domestic high-end flagship models with technological innovation and product strength.

At present, the competition in the mobile phone industry is unprecedentedly fierce, and in order to pursue cost reduction and efficiency increase, it is a general trend for core devices such as camera motors to achieve domestic substitution.

Haige believes that "the most critical factor is that the hard strength of the products of China's head motor manufacturers has passed and has reached the strict quality application standards of Dacheng."

02OIS suspense

In the evolution of the mobile phone camera motor, OIS optical stabilization is definitely worth a separate article.

Users have higher and higher requirements for the picture quality of photos, resulting in multiple "P" or "G+P" solutions for the lens, so the corresponding test for the current VCM motor products has been put forward with greater thrust, higher load capacity, larger stroke, and more extreme size.

With this demand as the driving force, OIS optical anti-shake function has become the absolute standard flagship of Samsung, Xiaomi, Huawei, Honor, OPPO, vivo and other brands in the past two years. As for Apple, as early as the iPhone 6 Plus began to use optical anti-shake technology.

To some extent, the battle for the commanding heights of OIS is the key battle to realize the dream of domestic substitution.

With many years of front-line experience in the service of mobile phone manufacturers, Haige said that in addition to being able to meet the rigid demand on the function, domestic OIS motor has lower cost, strong delivery ability, fast service response and other competitive advantages, and it is also an important factor to successfully enter the high-end core supply chain of the brand.

Affected by the sales of smart phones, the overall sales volume of the motor market in the first half of this year was not satisfactory, and the technology application gradually sank in the middle and low-end models. "We have established cooperation with several local manufacturers and will introduce more domestic motor products in the future." According to Xu Sheng, an executive of a domestic first-line brand mobile phone manufacturer, in the company's future product planning, OIS optical anti-shake has almost achieved full coverage.

According to the tide Power think tank, the OIS motor, which was previously exclusive to the high-end flagship, has been installed in batches of models with 2000 yuan or even lower prices. OIS popularity brought new space, domestic low-cost supply advantages are obvious.

03 New material revolution

It must be admitted that the cost of capturing market share at low prices is very large, resulting in many motor manufacturers struggling to survive.

Xu Wei (a pseudonym), a well-known motor company executive in China, bluntly said, "In terms of mobile phone camera motor business alone, there is basically no manufacturer that makes money, even if it is the OIS shipment ranking of the top several."

Haige said that the current situation is "killing the enemy a thousand, self-loss a thousand."

Chaodian think tank believes that at the level of market development, the technological innovation of domestic motors still needs to maintain enough vitality; In the cost control link, it is necessary to constantly adjust the strategy to focus on the advantage area by subtraction, and the use of cost-effective new materials is very key.

For example, the voice coil motor shrapnel is an important part of smart vision such as mobile phone cameras, AR, VR and so on to achieve zoom, the thickness is thinner than the hair, but can withstand 1 million times of focusing.

The titanium bronze alloy material required for the manufacture of motor shrapnel has excellent fatigue resistance. Due to the addition of highly oxidized titanium elements in the alloy material, the preparation difficulty is increased geometrically, and the traditional manufacturing method is almost impossible to achieve, and the material has been dependent on imports.

In order to enable the positive and healthy development of the industry, Shenzhen Camera Industry Association will hold the "2023 VCM Motor New Technology Summit Forum" on September 6, when there will be Bowei Alloy, Henkel, Delu and other top domestic suppliers of new materials to attend, to help domestic motors open source and throttle, reduce costs and increase efficiency, improve product competitiveness.

The brave meet, the wise win.