Average unit price of imports from 2013 to 2019.4: fiberglass and its products (US dollar/ton)
Spot Settlement Price for 2013-2019.1: LME Copper (US Dollar/Ton)
I. PCB Manufacturing
Among them, the flexible circuit board manufacturer began to restore normal stock stage in March after experiencing the impact of the refinement of the start rate of the Spring Festival in February. In April, the revenue increased 16% year-on-year and 9% annually. However, Q1's gross profit rate declined to 10-16% due to the low overall crop mobility.
As for rigid PCB, due to the relatively weak downstream demand, downstream customers actively reduce inventory. But HDI PCB performance is still bright, April revenue increased 13% year-on-year, rigid PCB manufacturers gross margin remained relatively stable.
Change of Gross Interest Rate of RPCB Manufacturers
Gross Interest Rate Change of Flexible Circuit Board Manufacturers
II. Downstream applications
As the global electronics industry enters a plateau period, the growth rate of traditional hardware slows down, and emerging demand will become the main growth point. The global electronics industry has entered the market plateau. As the main downstream applications of PCB in the past, smartphones, PCs and tablets have shown signs of fatigue, and the driving force for PCB growth has become increasingly limited.
At the same time, the downstream market of PCB has also emerged new demands, such as the increasing degree of automotive electronics, the development of server and communication infrastructure driven by cloud computing, and the emergence of new consumer electronics products such as wearable devices and VR/AR.
The PCBBB value in North America, which has experienced its peak since 2017, began to decline in January 2018 and has now fallen to the level in early 2017.
China Telecom, China Mobile, China Unicom and China Radio and Television have officially issued 5G commercial licenses, and China has officially entered the first year of 5G commercial. The early issuance of 5G licenses is expected to prompt manufacturers of telecommunication equipment to pull goods and accelerate the growth of upstream PCB industry chain related companies.
Market Scale of PCB Downstream Applications
Global smartphone shipments
Global PC shipments
III. 5G
High-frequency trend + MassiveMIMO, 5G construction brings double increase of PCB / copper clad plate number + area of base station. With the development of 5G base stations in high frequency band, the number of base stations will increase significantly. Li Fuchang, an expert of China Unicom Network Technology Research Institute, said at the "5G-oriented LTE Network Innovation Seminar" in 2017 that the number of 5G base stations may be 1.5-2 times of that of 4G. According to the survey data, by the end of 2018, the number of 4.2 million base stations in China will reach 3.72 million, and the total number of 5.0 million base stations will be predicted. Meanwhile, the application of MassiveMIMO will bring significant changes to the base station structure, from the antenna feed system + RRU + BBU to the form of AAU + CU + DU, in which AAU needs to integrate more components. According to the calculation, the area of base station AUUPCB in 5G era is about 4.5 times that of RUUPCB in 4G era.
5G brings PCB / copper clad laminate value increase, high frequency / high speed trend leads the industrial upgrading. Assuming that the number of 5G base stations in China is 1.3 times that of 4G, and the area is 4.5 times that of 4G, the unit price will decrease slightly as a whole. It is predicted that the value of AUUPCB of 5G base stations in China will be 25.5 billion yuan in the 5G era, about six times that of the 4G era, and the market scale will reach 6 billion yuan in the peak period of construction. Considering the global demand for 5G base stations, DU and CU, and the construction of small base stations and the remaining parts of 4G base stations, the consumption will be larger. At the same time, we predict that the domestic demand for AAU copper clad laminates for 5G base stations is expected to reach 10.9 billion yuan, and the market scale will reach 2.6 billion yuan per year during the peak period of construction.With the extension of 5G to high frequency, high frequency/high speed copper clad laminates are expected to gradually replace traditional FR-4 copper clad laminates.
Measuring and Calculating the Market Space of PCB in 4G and 5G Base Stations
Spatial Estimation of AAU Copper Clad Plate Market for 5G Macro Base Station
In the field of PCB, with the technological progress of PCB manufacturers in mainland China, the gap with overseas enterprises will be gradually narrowed.
Domestic PCB manufacturers actively cooperate with downstream 5G related R&D and production expansion, and domestic PCB manufacturers are expected to benefit fully.
In the field of copper clad laminates, Chinese manufacturers are accelerating their layout in the field of high-frequency/high-speed copper clad laminates. They are expected to gain the recognition of PCB local manufacturers by virtue of cost-effective advantages and seize the market share of high-frequency/high-speed copper clad laminates.
Combing the Related Standards of PCB Industry Chain
PCB usable area is becoming more and more tight in 5G era, and SLP permeability is expected to continue to improve.
Since 2017, Apple's motherboard has adopted two SLPs stacked in double layers plus one HDI board for connection, reducing its volume to 70% of its original size while retaining all the chips.
With the increase of radio frequency channel in 5G era, the number of RF front-end increases, the volume of battery increases with the increase of data, function and screen, the available area of PCB becomes more and more tight, and SLP permeability is expected to continue to increase and be introduced into Android camp.
Meanwhile, the value of single SLP in M-SAP process is more than twice that of high-level Anylayer, which leads to the increase of PCB value for mobile phones.
At present, Apple's LCP antenna supplier system has been relatively mature, MPI antenna field including Dongshan Precision, Pengding Holdings, Dupont and other related manufacturers have relevant layout.
The original Apple HDI PCB supply chain manufacturers are optimistic about the prospects of SLP, and have carried out layout, among which Pengding achieved SLP production in the second half of 2017.
PCB industry chain is expected to benefit from the demand pull brought by 5G terminals. At the same time, as the penetration of FPC and SLP in Android camp continues to increase with 5G, Android business of PCB related manufacturers is expected to fill the surplus capacity of Apple during the low peak period, and the profit elasticity brought by the increase of capacity utilization rate will be much higher than revenue elasticity.
