OPPO has entered intelligent wear, and metal injection molding MIM ushers in a good opportunity for development!

OPPO has entered intelligent wear, and metal injection molding MIM ushers in a good opportunity for development!

Recently, OPPO released the OPPO Watch smart watch, announcing its entry into the smart wear industry.

As OPPO's first attempt at smart watches, OPPO Watch offers a variety of different models, including 46mm, 41mm and fine steel plates. Its dial adopts rectangular design, 3D ceramic bottom shell, integrated metal middle frame, especially the dial adopts hyperbolic design, which has become the most eye-catching product highlight.

As a concrete manifestation of the "electronic+" trend, wearable devices have gradually completed market cultivation in recent years, and Apple, Xiaomi, Huawei and other terminal brands continue to launch corresponding products. The emerging smart wear market also brings considerable development opportunities to the MIM (metal powder injection molding) process.

▽ In the field of intelligent wear, MIM of metal injection molding has a full sense of existence

Intelligent wearable is a wearable portable computing device. In order to enable users to wear it comfortably for a whole day, the design of intelligent wearable must overcome the foreign body feeling - small size, light weight, and ergonomic shell. This means that intelligent wearable parts have the characteristics of small size, three-dimensional complex shape and special performance requirements.

Therefore, the MIM process of metal injection molding is highly sought after in the field of intelligent wear, which requires that "the body must be light and small, and the quality must be affordable". At present, MIM process of metal injection molding is mainly used in the manufacturing of smart watch case and watch chain.

For parts with complex structure, MIM process of metal injection molding has great advantages - near net forming, almost no waste generated. Complex parts can be mass produced at low cost by developing corresponding molds according to products.

▽ Smart wear is about to usher in a market breakthrough of 100 billion

In the past few years, the global smart wear market grew slowly. However, in 2019, the smart wearable device market began to return to the industry.

According to a research report released by IDC, a market research organization, in the third quarter of 2019, the global shipment of intelligent wearables was 84.5 million units, a year-on-year increase of 94.6%, setting a new record for single quarter shipments. Even among the individual stocks in the sector since the Spring Festival in 2020, the smart wear sector has continued to rise by about 2% - 3%.

In addition to the signs of "rejuvenation" in the market, there will be two gods running with intelligent wearables in the future - AI and 5G.

According to the report of Markets and Markets, the world's second largest market research institution, the global smart wearable AI market size will reach 42.4 billion US dollars (295.6 billion yuan) in 2023, and the smart wearable devices supported by AI algorithms may become the main force and "lead" the market. On the other hand, with the maturity of mobile Internet and the advent of 5G era, as the next hot spot of intelligent terminals, the application of intelligent wearable devices will be more extensive in the future.

The characteristics of MIM process of metal injection molding are very consistent with the development trend of precision and high-end consumer electronics. It can be predicted that the penetration rate and market scale of MIM process of metal injection molding in the intelligent wear field will also show a growth trend in the future.