1. Analysis of electronic glass industry chain
Electronic glass generally refers to ultra-thin float glass with a thickness of 0.1-2mm, which is widely used in smart phones, tablets, laptops, smart watches, in-vehicle applications, public inquiry systems, ATM machines, ordering and ordering systems, and industrial control , Medical and other fields.
In the electronic glass industry chain, the upstream is the original glass manufacturer, which plays the role of material supply, and the representative company is Corning Corporation of the United States; the midstream is the processing and assembler, and the main work is to cut, trim, and grind the upstream original. After deep processing such as printing, it is assembled with sensors, display screens and other components to form a touch screen. The representative company is Lens Technology; the downstream is a terminal equipment manufacturer who will finalize the hardware integration into finished terminal equipment such as mobile phones and tablets. The representative company is Apple.
From the perspective of downstream demand, the development of the mobile Internet has promoted the continuous upgrading of electronic products. At the same time, with the increase of residents' income and consumption levels, the demand for terminal mobile devices such as smart phones and tablet computers is also expanding. At least one protective screen is required for each mobile phone/each tablet. At the same time, due to the fitting loss and maintenance and stocking during the production process of the touch screen, the shipment quantity ratio of the protective screen to smartphones and tablets is greater than 1:1 . The increase in shipments of electronic equipment will drive the market demand for electronic glass.
2. Output of electronic glass industry
In addition, in recent years, with the widespread use of smart watches, in-vehicle applications, and ordering and ordering systems, the demand for electronic glass has also increased year by year. The data shows that China's electronic glass output reached 82.905 million square meters in 2019, a slight decrease compared to 2018.
3. Analysis of the competitive landscape of the electronic glass industry
At present, the production of high-performance electronic glass is a capital-intensive and technology-intensive industry. The vast majority of China's domestic high-performance electronic cover glass market is still mainly imported. The original glass required for touch screen production is ultra-thin glass below 1.1mm. Only a few glass companies in the world, such as Corning in the United States, Schott of Germany, Asahi Glass, and Electric Glass, can produce high-quality mass production.
China`s domestic electronic glass is currently relatively weak in the high-end ITO conductive glass (mainly TFT-LCD/OLED-ITO) and cover glass market, but China`s leading domestic electronic glass manufacturers such as NB Glass Technology Group, CH Electronic Glass Technology Group, ZGJC , SCXH Optoelectronics Technology and KLS Material Technology have been deeply involved in the electronic glass industry for many years.
NB Glass Technology Group officially entered the ultra-thin electronic glass market in 2010 and became one of the pioneers of domestic electronic glass. In 2014, it successfully mass-produced 0.2mm ultra-thin glass, breaking the technological monopoly of Europe, America and Japan. At present, NB has four electronic glass production bases: Hebei Window, Yichang Optoelectronics, Qingyuan CSG, and Xianning Optoelectronics, with a total production capacity of 780t/d. As of 2019, the company's electronic glass business has achieved operating income of 1.044 billion yuan and net profit of 208 million yuan, which is 20 times more than the net profit of only 10 million in 2016.
4. the electronic glass industry has accelerated the process of import substitution
At present, there is still a big gap in the performance of domestic and foreign cover glass, especially the depth of ion exchange. From the development trend of electronic cover glass at home and abroad, it can be seen that on the basis of maintaining the original surface compressive stress greater than 700MPa, in order to improve the performance of the cover glass against falling and falling, the focus is mainly on the optimization and improvement of glass composition. The ion exchange depth after chemical strengthening, Corning GG6 compared with GG3, the ion exchange depth has been increased from 40mm to 120mm, and the drop resistance of high aluminum cover glass has been greatly improved.
In the future, as the technology of Chinese domestic enterprises in electronic glass such as cover glass gradually matures and the gap with foreign leading companies such as Corning has narrowed, import substitution is expected to become the main development trend of the electronic glass industry in the future.