Chinese company captures 30 percent of global phone screen protector market

In the first half of this year, customers from Kazakhstan and other Central Asian countries placed orders for 20 million phone screen protectors with us. We've delivered over 12 million so far, with the remaining to be shipped soon," said Li Hongmei, co-founder of Hunan Mingyihu Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. (Mingyihu) in Jianghua Yao Autonomous County, Yongzhou, central China's Hunan Province.

Li Hongmei (1st L) introduces her company's products to African customers. (Photo/Chen Jie)

The company produces 600 million phone screen protectors annually. The products reach 72 countries and regions, capturing approximately 30 percent of the global market share.

In 1995, Li worked at a factory in Dongguan, south China's Guangdong Province. Over five years, she rose from an ordinary factory worker to a workshop supervisor and production line manager.

In 2000, Li and her husband, Wang Yonghong, left the factory and moved to Chang'an town in Dongguan, where they began selling small commodities from a street stall. Within just a few years, the couple transformed their retail operation into a wholesale business and expanded to Guangzhou, the provincial capital.

In 2005, Wang gave Li a birthday gift — a mobile phone. "I only remember that the screen wasn't very large, and I was terrified of scratching it," Li recalled.

To help his wife protect the phone screen, Wang cut a piece of sticky transparent plastic he had found to match the screen's dimensions, creating a makeshift screen protector.

Beyond her delight, Li realized that mobile phones would inevitably become widespread and that demand for screen protectors would grow — a clear business opportunity.

The couple conducted careful research and discovered that the best material for screen protectors at the time was transparent plastic film made from PET (polyethylene terephthalate). "It was still very difficult to source this material domestically. We located some scraps imported from Japan and South Korea that were being used for manufacturing other products in Foshan city," Li said.

Li Hongmei (C) instructs workers to produce phone screen protectors. (Photo/Chen Jie)

They invested nearly all their cash savings to purchase the material. In a small room in Guangzhou, the couple and Li's mother used photo paper cutters to produce about 2,000 screen protectors, at a cost of roughly 2 yuan (about $0.28) each.

Within just one year, the small workshop's capacity could no longer keep pace with growing demand. In 2006, the couple established a company dedicated to producing screen protectors. In only two years, its annual production and sales capacity surged to over 10 million units.

Li has actively expanded to overseas markets while leveraging domestic trade platforms. Every year at the Canton Fair, Li attends without fail unless she is already abroad. At this year's Canton Fair, Li secured orders worth 12.65 million yuan, including new customers from the five Central Asian countries.

Thanks to the Belt and Road Initiative, an increasing number of countries have strengthened economic and trade ties with China, enabling Li to expand overseas, with operations now spanning 103 countries and regions. "In the past two years, we've established overseas warehouses in Nigeria and Kenya, and built a factory in Ethiopia," Li said.

In recent years, Li and Wang have successively opened phone screen protector production bases in Jianghua county and Hengyang city, both in Hunan Province.

Photo shows Hunan Mingyihu Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. in Jianghua Yao Autonomous County, Yongzhou, central China's Hunan Province. (Photo/Chen Tingting)

"Moving from coastal areas to inland regions involves more than adjusting production layouts — it also requires upgrading production technology and processes, as well as integrating research and development resources," said Wang, who oversees production and technology.

"We were among the world's first companies to attempt developing tempered glass screen protectors," he added.

"In Africa, we've been selling one tempered glass screen protector model for over a decade, with cumulative sales reaching 130 million units," Li said. Meanwhile, Mingyihu maintains over 500 standardized product models. "For tempered glass thickness alone, we can achieve full-series customized production ranging from 0.5 millimeters to under 0.1 millimeters," Wang added.

To date, Mingyihu Group has applied for over 50 invention patents related to phone screen protectors. The enterprise has also driven upstream and downstream companies to achieve comprehensive upgrades across the entire industrial chain, including glass, AB adhesive and coating equipment, breaking through multiple technological bottlenecks.

Recently, Mingyihu launched an innovative tempered glass product specifically designed for foldable screens in Japan and South Korea. With joint support from upstream and downstream enterprises in the industrial chain, Mingyihu completed the development of substrate-free AB adhesive bonding technology using ultra-thin flexible glass measuring only 0.03 millimeters thick.