What Is the "Fourth Film" ASTRACE Just Launched in Shenzhen?

A Global Launch for the Fourth Film Category

On March 20, the 2026 Shenzhen Jiuzhou Expo officially opened, and ASTRACE used the stage to make an announcement two decades in the making: automotive window film has entered the photoelectric smart film era. Bringing together its three flagship brands — MTA, SUNSAINT, and APEXFILM — and built on the dual-core 3MDT and OMTD technology platform, ASTRACE formally introduced the "Fourth Film" to a global audience.

The presence at Jiuzhou was structured around three connected pillars — exhibition, conference, and competition — giving visitors a full view of the Fourth Film's technical capability, its business case, and the installation standards being built around it. What follows is a look at what happened across each of those three pillars, and why ASTRACE believes this marks a genuine turning point for the category.

Two Decades of Milestones Behind the Fourth Film

This launch didn't happen in isolation. In 2003, we opened the industry's move toward premium functional window film. In 2020, our negative oxygen ion innovation led the industry into a new generation of functional film. Today's announcement of photoelectric smart film is the next chapter in that same trajectory — each step building the technical and market foundation for the one that followed.

That history matters because the problem the Fourth Film solves has been building for years. As panoramic roofs have become standard on new energy vehicles, traditional film has struggled to keep up — insufficient sun-blocking, high cabin temperatures, weak privacy, and a lack of comfort have left stores stuck in price wars with shrinking margins. The market needed a real breakthrough, not another incremental upgrade, and that's the gap the Fourth Film is built to close.

Two Core Technologies Redefining What Window Film Can Do

The Fourth Film is built on two proprietary technologies developed in-house, each solving a different half of the problem that traditional film could never fully address:

• 3MDT smart dimming: one-tap smart dimming control combining high heat insulation, genuine privacy, and millisecond-level response, solving the heat and privacy problems of large panoramic roofs at the same time
• OMTD photoelectric film: built on globally leading nanoscale laser lithography, giving glass new aesthetic and interactive properties with a dynamic visual effect that stays invisible by day and comes alive at night, opening what we describe as the "4.0 era" of automotive interior glass aesthetics

Together, these two technologies mean the Fourth Film goes beyond simple heat insulation to deliver smart dimming and color control, beyond basic privacy to combine clear visibility with real security across every panoramic roof scenario, and beyond ordinary performance to open a higher-margin, differentiated path for stores looking to step out of price competition entirely.

Inside the Exhibition Hall: Where Visitors Saw the Technology Live

Hall 6 wasn't set up as a simple product display — it functioned as a concentrated showcase of precision technology achievements. Visitors on-site could directly experience how photoelectric smart film delivers one-tap dimming, smart color control, and uncompromising privacy, matching exactly what new energy vehicle owners are looking for in what has become a genuine "mobile smart living space."

Over the four days of the expo, our "black technology" exhibition hall drew an exceptionally high level of foot traffic, with a steady stream of visitors coming to ask questions and discuss the technology. The booth quickly became one of the clear focal points of the show floor, drawing OEMs, auto dealers, retail stores, and enterprise visitors from around the world, with active discussions and partnership conversations running throughout.

The Global Launch Conference: A Strategic Vision for 2026

If the exhibition hall showed the technical muscle behind the Fourth Film, the "2026: The Fourth Film You Must Adopt — Photoelectric Smart Film Global Launch Conference," held on the evening of March 20, showed the strategic thinking behind it. Held jointly with our MTA, SUNSAINT, and APEXFILM brands, the conference laid out a development roadmap for the Fourth Film era to the entire industry.

The conference was organized around four core themes:

• Entering a new era for window film — an innovation path out of homogenized competition
• 2026's must-adopt category: photoelectric smart film
• Marketing enablement: innovative go-to-market approaches for photoelectric smart film
• The path to store profitability: capturing the golden window on this new growth track

Speakers included our Chairman Liu Fengxi, our General Manager Yang Zijiang, Youjiu Technology President Zhong Pingfeng, and SUNSAINT Brand Operations Director Zhu Beini, each sharing forward-looking insight and strategic perspective on where the category is headed. The event functioned as both a product launch and a growth strategy briefing built specifically for store owners, laying out a clear course away from price-war competition and toward genuine blue-ocean opportunity.

Building the Competition Ecosystem: Setting the Installation Standard

Alongside the exhibition and conference, we held the "2026 Photoelectric Smart Film Advanced Installation Training and Global Installation Competition" in Hall 8. The event brought together an authoritative panel of industry judges, including Youjiu Technology's National Technical Director for window film, Liu Peng, combining professional judging, systematic training, and top-tier competition into a single, first-of-its-kind benchmark event for the category.

The significance of this event went beyond the competition itself. It marked the industry's first standalone competition track focused specifically on photoelectric film, giving the category its own benchmark event rather than folding it into a general film competition. It also gave the broader training system a theoretical and practical foundation to build from, helping establish real installation standards for photoelectric film. And it strengthened collaboration across the supply chain, creating two-way interaction between upstream technology providers and downstream installers whose real-world feedback helps accelerate large-scale rollout in the end market.

After three days of intense competition, installation specialists from across the country exchanged techniques and competed side by side, bringing the event to a strong close and putting a clear capstone on the broader expo.

The Business Case: Why Stores Are Moving to the Fourth Film

For store owners, the pitch behind the Fourth Film comes down to unit economics rather than just technology. The traditional three-film market has little room left to compete on, while the Fourth Film offers a genuinely new profit path, built on technical barriers, essential-use scenarios, and a differentiated customer experience:

Fourth Film vs. Traditional Film: The Store Economics

What's Next

Adopting the Fourth Film in 2026 isn't a slogan for us — it's a trend we believe the market is already moving toward. As stores look for a way out of price-war competition in the traditional film market, we see photoelectric smart film as the clearest path to sustainable growth, and we intend to keep leading the industry toward that future.