Royole, known for making the world’s first foldable smartphone, does not seem to be in the best financial condition. The company has defaulted on its employee wages for a year. The leading innovative company in China, whose primary business is focused on flexible display technology, has been in crisis for over a year.
As per China’s News Daily, around 50 Royole employees resorted to protest demonstrations with banners and slogans at the company’s Display Headquarters entrance in Shenzhen. After not adhering to the verbal promises made by Liu Zihong, Royole’s CEO, the employees had no option but to protest against the company. The employees have not received their areas and wages since November 2022 and are now demanding to resolve the issue and credit their wages as soon as possible.
The Employee Rights Protection Committee signed an application for the settlement of the remaining claims by Shenzhen Royole Technology Co., Ltd. as a demand. The Royole workers have not received the wage for the past 8 months, while the employees haven’t seen it for the past 12 months. Due to the ongoing financial crisis, thousands of company employees have already left the company over the past couple of years.
In response, the company said the business has significantly suffered losses and is only able to pay social security deposits. Only 200–300 employees are now left with the company, consisting of engineers who maintain the production line.
Royole’s move to seek help from the government and investors went in vain, as employees are saying the production line never started in 2022. However, the government is helping the company to restructure its debt, but there has been no significant change.
Royole’s Past Glory
The company’s last smartphone launched was the Royole FlexPai 2 in 2020, with up to 12GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. Even though the company’s maiden smartphone, Royole FlexPai, was sold out within a few minutes after going on sale in 2019,. In the last decade, it has been considered a primary competitor to Samsung Display’s monopoly as it has developed ultra-low-temperature non-silicon process integration technology to create flexible displays.
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