Recently, passive component manufacturers have successively ended the shareholders' meeting. From the situation revealed by the manufacturers this year, there is still the possibility of continued price increases in chip-resistor, MLCC and aluminum electrolytic capacitor in the second half of the year. In terms of raw materials, aluminum foil and ceramic substrates, the raw material for aluminum electrolytic capacitors and resistors, are currently the most intensely supplied raw material.
The third quarter is the traditional peak season for the electronics industry. From the report of the shareholders' conferences of the Taiwan EMS providers, Compal Electronics, Foxconn, and Liteon, EMS providers may face a new passive component price increases in July. In addition to passive component manufacturers in Taiwan, Japanese passive component manufacturers that did not increase their prices last year may join the ranks of rising prices from the third quarter, and the price increase of medium-to-low capacitance capacitors will exceed the high capacity.
Due to the wide range of usage, MLCC has become the protagonist of the passive component shortages. In addition, according to Japanese manufacturers, up to 2,500 part numbers’ order will no longer be accepted from March next year. These orders will be turning from Japan to Korea, Taiwan, and even factories in mainland China.
As regards resistor, many EMS providers have received notifications of price increases from some resistor manufacturers. The average price increase rate has reached 120%. The bottleneck of resistor production expansion has not yet been improved, especially the shortage of raw materials, ceramic substrates, in this case, it is impossible to achieve expansion. Chilisin estimates that the first phase of production expansion of resistor is expected to be done by the end of the year. If all goes well, it could increase by 20%, but it is still not enough to make up for the supply and demand gap. Therefore, the price of resistor will still rise in the second half of the year.
From reports of major passive component manufacturers, it can be seen that the manufacturers of raw material ceramic substrates are not willing to expand production for passive component. The company size of the ceramic substrate manufacturer is generally small, but the expansion of production requires a lot of investment. At the same time, the resistor supply chain is distorted and investment cannot be recovered, after many rounds of shuffling, only a few ceramic substrate factories survive on the market. Therefore, the ceramic substrate become the most headache raw material chip resistor factory.
Because of the environmental protection regulations in mainland China, many small and medium-sized manufacturers that manufacture aluminum foil have stopped production, which has affected the supply chain. Aluminum foil supply has become the biggest problem for aluminum electrolytic capacitor manufacturers; About the user end, driven by the needs of the automobile and industry, aluminum electrolytic capacitor’s supply and demand above 400 volts is the most intense, and the delivery period has been extended to 6 to 8 months.
In general, the supply of MLCC, chip resistors, and aluminum electrolytic capacitors will not be resolved in the next few months. EMS providers are aware of this trend and has advanced the stocking schedule to avoid large-scale production stoppages due to the shortage of passive components.
