[Editor's Note] The smartphone tempered glass and protective film market is a large market worth 37 trillion won per year, accounting for about 40% of the accessory market, and is expected to continue to grow at an average annual rate of 8.1% until 2026. In this rapidly growing tempered glass and protective film market, a domestic company that accounts for 77.66% of the global protective film market is a hot topic. It is Reallook & Company, which holds original patents in 19 countries around the world and is renowned as a company specializing in fingerprint recognition and curved surface molding technology. Accordingly, our magazine arranged an interview with Lim Nam-il, CEO of Real Look & Company, to learn about related technologies and products.



■ Please introduce Real Look & Company.

Reallook & Company focuses on two products: screen protectors and tempered glass for smartphones that everyone uses.

Functionally, fingerprint recognition is a hot topic these days, and we are a 3D protector specialist company that focuses on both fingerprint recognition and curved surface forming.

■ I understand that Reallook & Company developed all of the film, mold, and forming press for producing the 3D full-cover fingerprint recognition film in-house. I'd like to hear about the development process along with an introduction.

At Reallook & Company, we need three things for fingerprint recognition film and tempered glass: the raw material fingerprint recognition; a film that can be formed into a convex surface; a spring that, when pressed, returns to its original state; the industry calls this the spring back phenomenon; a mold design technology that can alleviate the spring back phenomenon; and forming equipment that can actually form downwards by over 90 degrees, called an undercut.

We design molds to alleviate the springback phenomenon of the raw material, film, and combine these to achieve actual forming to create the corresponding product.

■ I would like to hear about the future outlook for the fingerprint recognition market and Reallook & Company’s plans.

As for how fingerprint recognition functions are used on smartphones, one common security feature is unlocking the device with your fingerprint through the display.

Moving on to the next part, it is being used as a stable solution for mobile payments. Currently, Kakao Pay and Master Card are used.

Beyond this, it is expected to be utilized as a terminal in the healthcare field in conjunction with the 4th industrial revolution through blood flow detection, heart rate monitoring, and BMI index measurement.

We are focusing on two things: a film that can completely protect the device against the corresponding fingerprint recognition sensor, and a tempered glass.

■ Lastly, please give a word to the readers.

We at Reallook & Company have spent a lot of time developing new technologies over the past five years, so we have neglected the B2C sector.

It may be an old record at this point, but if you search online, you will see that our products were listed in the top 100 on Amazon in the US, and in the case of the Korean market, we once had a market share of around 70% through OEM and ODM.

In other words, we believe that many of our e4ds readers are our Reallook & Company customers and have quietly supported us for many years in developing the fingerprint recognition and curved surface molding technologies that we have achieved so far.

As you know, there is a saying, “Eight-way profit”. A company has many stakeholders, from customers to the nation, and we have received tangible and intangible help based on their trust to get to where we are today. I am always grateful for this, and in the future, we will also strive to benefit all members as a member of society.

Please keep an eye on our future and give us lots of guidance. Thank you for being with us.