[Market Observation] Weak demand for consumer electronic products in the first half of 2022, the shortage of materials in the supply chain gradually eased

In the first half of 2022, the consumer electronics market is affected by the weakening of the housing economy, the epidemic, international tensions, and high inflation. Coupled with the traditional off-season, the demand for related applications such as PCs, laptops, TVs, and smartphones has cooled significantly. Customers have successively revised down their shipment targets for this year; automotive, Internet of Things, communications, servers, etc. still maintain good demand. At the same time, due to the spread of the epidemic and the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the supply chain generally builds higher inventories to avoid the risk of material shortages due to blocked transportation.

1. Wafer foundry

Affected by the prolonged delivery of semiconductor equipment, the overall wafer foundry capacity utilization rate continued to be fully loaded with limited new capacity in the first quarter of this year, especially for components produced by mature processes (1Xnm~180nm). Looking forward to the second quarter, although the growth of global wafer production capacity is still limited, due to the weak demand for end products, the continued tension in the international situation and the impact of the epidemic, the supply chain has the opportunity to obtain sufficient supply for chips that were previously squeezed by production capacity. .

2. Server

The overall server key material supply situation improved slightly in the first quarter. In addition, due to the continuous increase of orders for ultra-large data centers, the general supply cycle of Netcom chips such as LAN IC/chip is still about 40 weeks higher, but the demand gap can be made up by urgently increasing the order fee, and the impact has begun to decrease. With the ease of the above situation, ODM motherboard production has been chasing orders frequently, prompting the chasing of FPGAs and PMICs and other materials, and Netcom chips are also overstocked. The material shortage of manufacturers still makes the production of motherboards of a small number of customers still suppressed, but it does not affect the overall server market supply situation. With the improvement in material supply, server shipments will increase significantly in the second quarter. It is estimated that shipments will grow by about 15.8% quarterly to 3.6 million units.

3. Smartphone

Affected by the sluggish seasonal demand, the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and high inflation, the market demand has cooled, so the delivery of materials in the supply chain has eased compared to the second half of last year. Although there is still a shortage of some parts and components, they are mainly concentrated in low-end and mid-end smartphone products, especially the delivery delay of 4G SoC is more significant. The delivery time is about 30-40 weeks, which is limited by production capacity planning. , the low-end mobile phone market demand has not been met. It is followed by A+G sensor with a delivery period of about 32~36 weeks, and OLED DDIC and Touch IC with a delivery period of 20~22 weeks. The production volume of smartphones in the second quarter will be affected by the interaction of the above factors. The estimated production volume is 316 million units, with a quarterly growth of only 3%, which is lower than the performance of previous years.

4. Laptops

Also affected by the weakening demand in the terminal market, except for client SSDs, which are no longer among the long-term forecasts, Type C IC, WiFi and PMIC are still long in delivery. Among them, Type C IC is 20~25 weeks the longest, but compared According to TrendForce’s assessment at the beginning of this year, the delivery cycle has not been further extended, so it is expected that the delivery time of these three types of products will be improved by the end of the second quarter. With the supply chain supply continuing to improve, it is estimated that shipments of notebook computers (including Chromebooks) in the second quarter will be approximately 55.1 million units, down 0.7% quarter-on-quarter.

5. MLCC passive components

From the perspective of other key components, taking MLCC as an example, the demand for major consumer electronic products such as mobile phones, laptops, tablets, and TVs declined significantly in the first quarter, resulting in consumer products such as original suppliers and channel agents. Specification MLCC inventory level is high, and this situation may continue into the second quarter. At present, the driving force of car and industrial MLCCs has steadily increased, while the specifications for consumer products have not yet escaped the pattern of oversupply. In the second quarter, the MLCC market has the opportunity to gradually increase the production capacity and supply of automotive and server ICs by semiconductor IDM factories, so as to alleviate the problem of long and short materials, and promote the development of foundries for automotive power, servers, fast charging, and charging and energy storage equipment. Cargo-grade MLCCs, automotive-grade, and industrial-grade MLCCs have the opportunity to become the main growth drivers in the second quarter. Murata, TDK, Taiyu and Yageo will be the main beneficiaries; while consumer-grade MLCCs may face a slowdown in demand for mobile phones and laptops. As ODM factories continue to adjust their inventories, market demand may remain weak in the second quarter.

Looking forward to the second quarter, except for servers, demand for end products related to the consumer category is still weak. Parts that are originally long materials will face more severe price challenges due to the imbalance between supply and demand; short materials with serious shortages will shift more output to products with strong demand through the deployment of internal production capacity. TrendForce believes that the changes in PC market conditions show that in the case of rapid changes in demand, purchasing behavior has quickly shifted from the original over-ordering strategy to actively cutting orders, making the supply chain order to escape the seasonal pattern of previous years. pulsation.