Traditional peak season order demand support, network infrastructure, AI demand and iPhone new machine material preparation support, MLCC supplier operations gradually climbed

TrendForce Consulting: Traditional peak season order demand support, Netcom infrastructure, AI demand and iPhone new machine supplies, MLCC supplier operations gradually climbed

TrendForce Consulting said that with the global inflation cooling quarter by quarter, the market inventory turned healthy, ODM shipment resumed the past rhythm, MLCC suppliers monthly average BB Ratio from 0.84 in April, all the way up to 0.91 in early July, the total shipment also from 345 billion in March. It gradually climbed to 389 billion in June, an increase of 12%.

TrendForce Consulting said that MLCC industry after the first half of the market inventory and capacity adjustment, since the second quarter, BB Ratio and shipments have begun to grow slowly month by month, indicating that the MLCC industry bottom has passed. Looking forward to the second half of the year, although there are back-to-school and festival shopping to stimulate demand, it is still necessary to observe the degree of recovery of terminal market demand in the traditional peak season, which will guide the development direction of the MLCC industry in the second half of the year.

Us network infrastructure, AI servers and Apple new machine orders stimulate, the second half of the ODM pull momentum to see an increase

In addition to the traditional peak season demand, the United States recently announced the launch of a network infrastructure plan of more than 42 billion US dollars, the goal of providing a fast Internet environment in the United States before 2030, is expected to drive the performance growth of Netcom factories such as Qiacer, Zhonglei, Zhiyi, and optical fiber broadband, 5G FWA North American orders increased. It also further promoted the growth of RF/High Q MLCC shipments of Murata, National Giant, and Huaxinke.

In the second quarter, AI AI demand erupted, including Gpus A100 and H100 applied to generative AI, driving NVIDIA's performance upward, although the order size is difficult to compare with enterprise servers or data centers. But it also promoted ODM factories such as Hon Hai, Wistron and Quanta to Murata, Samsung, Taiyong and other high-end MLCC (high capacity above 1u, X6S&X7R high temperature) pulling momentum.

At the same time, Apple is about to release the iPhone 15 at the end of the third quarter, and major ODM factories such as Hon Hai and Lishun have also started to prepare materials from the end of June, although the latest Forecast order volume (Forecast) is unchanged from the same period last year, but it still pushes up the Japanese factory Murata and the shipments are increasing month by month. Netcom, AI server and iPhone15 new machine orders, so that Murata, Taiyong and Samsung in early July, BB Ratio above the line of growth and contraction (BB Ratio 1).

OEM stores are cautious, order visibility is limited, and suppliers strictly control capacity operation rate

Since the second quarter of this year, mobile phones, laptops and other order demand slowly picked up, along with inventory return to normal, the brand and ODM pull also turned stable, only OEM order planning is still conservative, rather through urgent orders, short single dynamic adjustment inventory preparation, rather than overly optimistic. Therefore, order demand is still fluctuating, MLCC suppliers in the order visibility is low, and want to stabilize the price of the balance, still choose to strictly control the capacity of the operation rate. In addition to Murata, TDK, Taichi factory in Japan, the operating rate is close to 90%, and the remaining suppliers still maintain 6-70% of their production capacity in China.