News description
     The installation of multi-lens technology in mid-priced mobile phone models has been part of Samsung’s strategy for the current year. With the lower-end A51 model, part of the A-series, Samsung hopes to decentralize the four lenses only previously used in high-end mobile phones, to attract more buyers.
Impact analysis
      Based on statistics from Q3 2019, Samsung currently holds an approximate 20% share of the global smartphone market. Compared with Huawei, who ranked second, the gap in the market share has narrowed from 6% in 2018 to 3%, indicating that the top spot in the smartphone market is at stake. By contrast, newly-established mobile phone brand realme has squeezed Lenovo to claim 7th place in the 2018 global ranking by expanding its offering of mid-range models in the Southeast Asian markets such as India, Indonesia, etc. Therefore, under conditions of low brand loyalty amongst mid-end consumers, if there is a product with a high price-performance ratio, the market layout will be reshuffled. This shift has prompted more higher-end mobile phones to appear on the market. Where Samsung has failed to stand out in the high-end market, its decentralization of the high-end camera lens is an apparent attempt to drive its mobile phone business with its mid-range model offering.
     According to the statistics published over the past five years regarding the number of multi-lens models, dual-lens smartphones have grown significantly since 2017. From 2017 onwards, the trend has been for triple-lens mobile phones, with about 49% of multi-lens phones dominated by triple-lens (or more) models composed of a standard (main) lens for high pixels and secondary lenses with different focal lengths. Also, newer designs comprise of multiple identical lenses which perform operations through algorithms to complete the corresponding functions.
      Following the increase in the number of mobile phone lenses, there has been a great demand for rigid-flex PCBs. Although in 2018 the global mobile phone market suffered the first downturn since the advent of smartphones, the continuous improvement of the specifications of smartphone lens modules has driven the penetration rate and added value to rigid-flex PCBs, regardless of the number of lenses or increase in lens functions and specifications. Hence, despite a drop in the demand for rigid-flex PCBs for mobile phone lens modules, it can still maintain a growth rate of nearly 6%. In the future, with an increase in the number of lens pixels and lenses, the demand for rigid-flex PCBs for lens modules will continue to grow.