TrendForce: AI demand drives Japanese and Korean MLCC suppliers to achieve the highest shipments in June in five years, with consumer-grade order overflow boosting prices from Taiwanese and Chinese manufacturers

According to the latest survey by TrendForce, in June, the top three MLCC suppliers in Japan and South Korea (Murata, Samsung Electro-Mechanics, Taiyo Yuden) achieved a monthly shipment volume that reached a nearly five-year high, with 140 billion, 98 billion, and 40 billion units respectively, and the growth momentum continued into July. AI applications are the main driving force, with CSP manufacturers maintaining strong procurement demand for self-developed ASIC platforms such as Google TPU and AWS Trainium, driving continuous growth in demand for high-capacity, low-voltage, small-sized MLCCs.

At the same time, Japanese and South Korean suppliers are accelerating the shift of production capacity from consumer-grade X5R to high-end X6S/X7R specifications, resulting in a severe squeeze on the production capacity of mid-to-high capacity (1µF-22µF) consumer-grade MLCCs, with mainstream inventory days generally falling below 30 days. The overflow effect of production capacity has led channels, agents, and second- and third-tier customers to urgently pull goods, significantly increasing order visibility for Taiwanese and mainland suppliers, leading to rising prices, with agents raising prices by an average of 20-25%, and spot market prices have soared to 2-3 times the original price. TrendForce pointed out that the consumer-grade MLCC market currently shows a structural mismatch of "weak end demand, strong channel pricing."