The output of smartphones, TVs, and cars in the world is in danger of falling sharply due to the shortage of capacitors

MLCC or multi-layer ceramic capacitors are only lower than a coin but are one of the important electronic components that are indispensable to any consumer electronics product even in today's cars. The lack of capacitors needed will make the production plan of consumer devices significantly affected.

At a recent conference, Brian McGee - Chief Financial Officer (CFO) GoPro admitted that his company could not produce enough cameras because of the lack of MLCC. Production output reached only about 4.2 million units in 2018, while the original plan was about 5 million products.

The output of smartphones, TVs, and cars in the world is in danger of falling sharply due to the shortage of capacitors Picture 1

TTI, an electronic component distributor, said that capacitors are gradually becoming deficient globally and will continue to take place in 2020. Due to the development of the car industry, the mobile industry and IoT devices, so the demand for ceramic capacitors has far exceeded supply since 2017.

A GoPro camera containing about 320 MLCC, with more complex products this number can be up to several thousand.

According to Nikkei, about 1,000 ceramic capacitors are needed to produce the latest iPhone X. This number increased by 10% compared to the previous model and double compared to the iPhone 6s.

The output of smartphones, TVs, and cars in the world is in danger of falling sharply due to the shortage of capacitors Picture 2
The output of smartphones, TVs, and cars in the world is in danger of falling sharply due to the shortage of capacitors Picture 3

Meanwhile, the number of MLCCs needed for a Tesla electric car is about 10,000, 10 times higher than smartphones. The increasing demand of car manufacturers is partly the cause of the sales of component manufacturers.

The output of smartphones, TVs, and cars in the world is in danger of falling sharply due to the shortage of capacitors Picture 4 Several dozen MLCCs on the Raspberry Pi computer bar are quite small in size.

The revenue of US manufacturer Kemet in 2018 increased by 14.2% compared to 2017. In which, half of the sales came from the sale of ceramic capacitors.

Murata, the largest producer of ceramic capacitors in terms of market share, has announced plans to increase production by 10% this year.

However, because the price of ceramic capacitors is lower than 1 penny even though the price and profitability of this component are quite thin, not all manufacturers expect it. In addition, only when new products are coming, new manufacturers order ceramic capacitors, which makes many vendors fall passive and sometimes missed production plans. Therefore, not all companies are willing to accept the risk of increasing ceramic capacitor production.