Asahi Glass Co., Japan's largest glass maker, on Thursday unveiled a super-tough, scratch resistant cover for gadgets that it says is six times stronger than conventional glass.
Called "Dragontrail," the product represents Asahi's intensified ambitions to grab a chunk of the surging global market for smartphones and tablets. All those devices need a durable sheath to protect what's inside from the bumps, nicks and falls that inevitably come with use.
The biggest player in the market now is Corning Inc., which makes the much-heralded "Gorilla" glass.
The company also showed videos of tests it had done on the glass. It bent but didn’t break under 60kgs of weight and resisted the shock of a hammer strike in the videos.
Asahi Glass hopes Dragontrail will generate global revenue of at least 30 billion yen ($360 million) and about 30 percent market share next year.
The product is already in some devices, but the company said it could not reveal details about customers or when it signed its first deal.
Tough glass doesn’t just mean gadgets are less likely to suffer broken screens. Because the glass is tougher, manufacturers can get away with using thinner sheets and that helps products slim down and get lighter.
The glass will go up against Corning’s Gorilla glass, which boasts similar properties and has proved a hit with portable gadget makers. It’s already used in more than 225 mobile devices including cell phones, laptop and tablet PCs, and was recently selected by Sony for the front glass for its flat-panel LCD TVs, said Corning.
Asahi Glass has been developing Dragontrail for the last two years and the company has already begun supplying it to some electronics makers, but delayed its disclosure until Thursday. It declined to identify its customers.
