TOF is fighting a protracted war in the consumer electronics market. Is Apple the only player this year?

Driven by the Android mobile phone camp, TOF, which was once "hotly hyped" by the market, seems to be facing an embarrassing situation.

According to Korean news, Samsung is planning to redesign the sensor lenses used in high-end smartphones and is considering abandoning the TOF sensor. In other words, the Samsung Galaxy S22 series may not be equipped with a TOF lens.

Regarding the current market status of TOF, a senior industry insider revealed to the author, "In the mobile phone market, only Apple will be equipped with TOF in 2022, and no other company will have products equipped with TOF."

The person believes that TOF will continue to fight a protracted war in the mobile phone market. Currently, major mobile phone brands are working hard on folding screens, and TOF's value can only be better reflected when the AR market emerges. Looking into the reasons, the person admitted that there is still a lack of applications in the TOF market, but fundamentally, it is due to the thin profits of mobile phone manufacturers.

An industry insider told the author that Apple phones have a 60% profit, Xiaomi phones have about 6% profit, and the TOF cost is equal to the profit of a single domestic phone.

It can be seen that after loading TOF on Android phones, not only is there a lack of application scenarios, but profits are also not guaranteed. More importantly, TOF seems to be abandoned by mobile phone brand manufacturers today.

TOF's embarrassing situation: consumers are not willing to pay

TOF is experiencing a situation from being "sought after" to "out of favor".

3D sensing technology became famous because Apple introduced the facial recognition application in iPhone X. Apple used structured light, and then Android manufacturers tried TOF.

In 2018, OPPO released the first smartphone equipped with a TOF camera, OPPO R17 Pro. In December of the same year, vivo released its first smartphone equipped with a TOF camera, vivo NEX Dual-Screen Edition; Huawei released its first smartphone equipped with a TOF camera, Honor V20.

In 2019, Android manufacturers have joined the TOF camera camp.

According to data, in February 2019, Samsung released the Galaxy S10 5G, which is equipped with a TOF lens on the front and back respectively; LG released the LG G8 ThinQ, which is equipped with a rear TOF lens; Lenovo released the Z6 Pro 5G mobile phone, which is equipped with a rear TOF lens. Huawei also equipped the mid-range model nova 5 Pro with a rear TOF lens in June.

In other words, since the birth of TOF technology, it has quickly gained the favor of a large number of mobile phone brand manufacturers. Because of this, the industry once believed that TOF has become a standard feature of flagship models and will continue to penetrate into the mid- and low-end markets.

However, in reality, the development curve of TOF on mobile phones is completely different from expectations.

In 2021, Korean media reported that the Samsung Galaxy S22 series may not be equipped with TOF lenses. At that time, Samsung explained that judging from the data given by the manufacturers of TOF sensor lenses and the overall brand development trend, Samsung believed that consumers did not seem to be interested in this type of lens! At the same time, it believes that TOF lenses do not seem to be of much help to high-end smartphones. So far, Samsung remains skeptical about its reliability on mobile phones, although it can play a role in augmented reality and virtual reality VR.

A person who is deeply involved in the mobile phone industry chain admitted to the author that high-end mobile phones with TOF are not easy to sell. Because of this, some mobile phone brand manufacturers have cut orders several times and are left with a pile of inventory.

The person said helplessly that in the end it was the suppliers who suffered the losses, and in 2022, Apple was the only player in the TOF mobile phone market, and other mobile phone brand manufacturers did not have new phones with TOF.

In his opinion, TOF will still need to fight a long-term battle in the mobile phone market due to the lack of applications.

AR becomes a life-saving straw?

It is worth noting that not only TOF is neglected by mobile phone manufacturers, but even structured light cannot escape this fate.

A senior industry insider admitted to the author that models with TOF are not very useful and have poor sales. Therefore, major mobile phone brand manufacturers did not have models with TOF in 2022. Not only that, there are also few models with structured light.

"The 3D market in 2022 is indeed very unsatisfactory." Another person who has been deeply involved in the 3D camera industry revealed to the author.

In other words, the 3D camera market has encountered a development bottleneck.

However, even so, some industry insiders are still optimistic about this market. A person who has been deeply involved in the 3D camera industry chain told me that TOF applications have not yet taken off and may need 2-3 years of accumulation. If the AR market matures, the role of TOF will be reflected.

So what is the current application of TOF? According to the author's understanding, mobile phones are the terminal field with the largest TOF usage. In the non-mobile phone field, TOF is basically at the K level. The final volume of sweepers depends on the application effect and cost of TOF in the sweeper market.

In other words, apart from mobile phones, the application scenarios of TOF are very limited.

Another practitioner who has left the 3D market said that TOF requires long-term investment and preparation. Many practitioners previously had a speculative mindset towards this market, and this mindset led to a lack of thinking about application issues.

The person added that we should change our way of thinking, because not all products can be sold in the same volume as mobile phones. For example, some European and American companies have 3D products for access control, and the unit price is very high, and the volume is also not small. In his opinion, TOF will have more opportunities in the scattered terminal market in the future.

As he continues to be optimistic about the 3D market, he still firmly chooses to return to the 3D camera market.

In fact, returning to the essence of the development of things, the reason why a product can be successful is that there must be a lot of accumulation in the early stage, whether it is the mobile phone end or the non-mobile phone end. Now that TOF has been "temporarily" abandoned by mobile phone terminals, it actually sounded a wake-up call for the entire upstream and downstream industries of mobile phones.