Due to MLCC Shortage, price is up 30 times and demand is up 10.6 billion this year
Recently, MLCC prices have continued to spread the price boom. As insider disclosed, MLCC price has been crazy for the past two months. In the past 5 yuan/K products, the price has now exceeded 50 yuan /K. Even so, demand still tight. Multiple agencies or media have predicted that prices will be still push up, and the shortage of MLCC in 2018 will be even more severe.
A few days ago, one of the largest MLCC (“Multi-Layer Ceramic Capacitors”) manufacturers in China, FENGHUA revealed, benefited from the recent increase in MLCC prices, the company‘s main business profit has reached the highest level in history this year. Wang jinquan, President of FENGHUA, said, the company‘s current MLCC list has row to the third quarter of 2018, and the supply will be tight in the third quarter of next year. It is anticipated that this round of price increase will continue into next year. Depending on the report, the price has experienced three rounds of price increase since the second half of last year, the overall increase is about 25-30%. Even more dramatically, many high-end capacitors have shot up 30 times and are still can‘t get the goods. Currently, it is estimated that the monthly production capacity of the MLCC will be around 11 billion, and it will be expected to increase by 40% to 50% in July next year.
MLCC is mainly used in four major fields, including 28% of audio and video equipment, 24% of mobile phones, 18% of PC, 12% of cars, and 82% of the total. It is worth mentioning consumer electronics and automobile electronics, with the improvement of inside functional structure with mobile phones and car step by step, the demand for ceramic capacitor is obviously improved and become the tipping point of this round of price boom.
The principal reasons for the shortage of MLCC market are: 1 The growth of electronic smart plate drives the demand growth of components. 2 Japan‘s related products are developing towards the high-end direction of automobile electronics and industrial control equipment, and release the middle and low-end market space. However, the expansion of MLCC will take the time, so the capacity vacancy. 3 Environmental factors affect the increase of raw materials price. 4 Market speculations are not excluded.
A 2017 MLCC outlook report from the JAPAN ECONOMIC CENTER showed that general mobile phones, smart phones, tablets, personal computers and other consumer electronic equipment as the use of commodities, forecasts for global demand MLCC, will rise to 552.1 billion in 2017, compared with 2016, 2017 MLCC demand forecasts will increase 10.6 billion again. However, 2017 annual production capacity of each manufacturer will be less than 9 billion, and whether it can guarantee production in this complex situation will be a severe test for the capacity of the industry supply chain. As insider analysis that although the MLCC manufacturers are expanding production, but the standard MLCC products is still in short supply, the new capacity is still unable to meet market demand, market prices will continue to tighten, advance in price is expected to continue into the second quarter of next year, some MLCC shortage situation even likely to continue to the end of next year.
