Ennostar’s subsidiary Epistar and PlayNitride’s wholly-owned subsidiary PlayNitride Display have announced that they have teamed up to build a production line for 6-inch Micro LED epi-wafers. Looking at the latest progress in the development of Micro LED, large-sized displays are regarded as the forerunners to the more advanced end products. Even though Micro LED has unresolved technological bottlenecks and cost-related issues, TrendForce is optimistic that this technology will eventually be adopted for the development of different kinds of displays and end products. Examples include transparent AR smart glasses, displays for wearable devices like smartwatches, automotive displays such as those embedded in a smart cockpit, and other transparent display products. Furthermore, the latest efforts in product development will likely create new high-end applications for Micro LED. TrendForce currently forecasts that the value of the market for Micro LED chips used in displays will reach US$542 million in 2024. Afterwards, the market will experience soaring growth starting in 2025 on account of the maturation of technologies.
BOE has become the largest shareholder in HC Semitek following a RMB 2.1 billion capital investment deal, and they are now in a partnership with respect to the development of Micro/Mini LED businesses. BOE has been involved in Micro/Mini LED since 2017 and now possesses related offerings such as displays and backlight solutions. In 2020, BOE established BOE MLED Technology as a subsidiary dedicated to the R&D and manufacturing of Micro/Mini LED products. As for HC Semitek, it is a major Chinese LED chip supplier and has an overarching presence across the LED chip industry chain. Hence, it produces not only LED chips but also LED epi wafers, sapphire substrates, etc. According to the data from market intelligence firm TrendForce, HC Semitek took fourth place in the 2021 ranking of LED chip suppliers by external sales revenue. Besides this achievement, HC Semitek is also at the forefront of advanced LED technologies including Micro/Mini LED. In a ranking of LED chip suppliers based on the revenue that is solely from sales of Mini LED chips, HC Semitek is currently in third place following Epistar and San’an.
The latest research from global market intelligence firm TrendForce finds that the usual demand surge related to the year-end holiday season is not materializing during this second half of the year due to several factors. First, the data about the global economy continue to show a negative outlook, and the consumer electronics market is unable to shake off the constraining influence of high inflation and rising interest rates. Furthermore, at the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party that was held this October, the leadership of the Chinese government made it clear that the strict zero-COVID policy will remain in force. Lastly, ODMs are having problems lowering their inventories, and the whole supply chain from the upstream to the downstream is still experiencing inventory-related issues as well. Hence, in view of the underwhelming peak season and ODMs’ cautious approach to stocking up, TrendForce estimates that the average BB (book-to-bill) ratio of MLCC suppliers will have slipped slightly to 0.81 in 4Q22.
Zhengzhou, the capital China’s Henan Province, was hit with a wave of COVID-19 outbreaks in the middle of October. The spread of the disease eventually reached Foxconn’s manufacturing base, where the number of infections rose significantly in late October. This event has thus directly affected the performances of the iPhone production lines that are deployed within the base. In its latest investigation of this event, TrendForce finds that the capacity utilization rates of the iPhone production lines have climbed back to around 70% as the local outbreaks are being gradually brought under control.
According to TrendForce, global notebook shipments in 4Q22 are likely to decline to 42.9 million units, down 7.2% QoQ and 32.3% YoY, lower than the same period before the pandemic. In addition, market demand is affected by negative factors such as inventory, the Russian-Ukrainian war, and rising inflation, leading to a downward revision of notebook market shipments in 2022 to 189 million units, a 23% decline YoY, with the proportion of shipments in the first and second half of the year at 53:47, the first top-heavy scenario in the past ten years.
