With the acceleration of the penetration rate of new energy vehicles, can the vehicle PCB usher in an outbreak?

Jiwei network news, not long ago, PCB leader Shennan Circuit announced the results of the fixed increase, the company raised more than 2.5 billion yuan of funds this time; the issue price was only 4% discounted from the closing price of the day. It is worth noting that the list of targets of this offering can be called "luxury group": in addition to the second phase of the National Integrated Circuit Fund (Big Fund) as the first subscription of 300 million yuan, foreign capital such as Xiaomo, UBS AG, BNP, as well as a number of fund companies such as Caitong, CEIBS and Nord have also appeared.

Behind the second phase of the big fund choosing to invest in Shennan Circuit, does it mean that the PCB industry can win more money in 2022?

Industry competition: poor local pattern, low bargaining power

As the largest producer of the global PCB industry, China's proportion of the total output value of the global PCB industry has risen from 8% in 2000 to 54% in 2019, with a compound growth rate of 12.80%.

However, the local PCB industry pattern is very poor, the top ten market share is only 50.71%, the competition can be described as very sufficient, which leads to the industry's companies in the industrial chain bargaining power is weak, profitability and risk transfer ability decline.

Although there are many downstream pcb industries, the main customers in the three aspects of communication electronics, consumer electronics, and automotive electronics have a large-scale monopoly nature, such as Huawei, ZTE, Apple, Tesla, BOE and other strong giants in the industry, so PCB manufacturers have a low voice in the downstream giant enterprises, and some companies in the industry are even more like the service industry than the manufacturing industry.

In addition to downstream enterprises, PCBs are also facing cost pressures brought about by rising prices of upstream materials. PCB main raw materials include copper clad laminate, copper foil and glass fiber cloth, its supply and price fluctuations directly affect the production costs of PCB enterprises, of which PCB copper foil is the main raw material for the manufacture of copper clad laminates, accounting for about 30% of the cost of copper clad laminates (thick plates) to 50% (thin plates).

Taking copper clad laminate as an example, the industry concentration is high, the total market share of the world's top ten manufacturers is about 75%, and the copper clad laminate manufacturers have stronger bargaining power, so PCB manufacturers are susceptible to upstream squeeze, thus facing the pressure brought about by the transfer of raw material costs by copper clad laminate companies.

Therefore, it is not difficult to see from the above analysis that the concentration of local PCB enterprises is not high, and there is a lack of discourse power in front of downstream giant enterprises, while the upstream copper clad laminate material manufacturers have a high concentration and have stronger cost transfer capabilities... This has also formed a situation in which the competition pattern of local PCB companies is poor.

Chongda technology related people told Jiwei Network: "We judge that the next year or two of material prices are basically in a stable downward channel; coupled with the PCB manufacturing capacity is getting stronger and stronger, some of the domestic projects are expanding production." The high degree of automation of expansion, the cost will be reduced, so the price of PCB is in a huge downward trend in the future. ”

The market demand for automotive PCBs is strong

Although the competition pattern of local PCB companies is poor, under the ultra-high-speed penetration of new energy vehicles into traditional fuel vehicles, automotive electronics, as one of the three downstream applications of PCB, is expected to drive the expansion of the PCB market.

According to Prismark data, the average annual compound growth rate of global automotive PCB output from 2019 to 2024 is 4.5%, which is higher than the industry average growth rate of 4.3%. The trend of the new four modernizations of the automotive industry has contributed to the incremental source of automotive electronic PCBs, mainly because of the rapid penetration of new energy vehicles and the increase in the value of single-vehicle PCBs.

According to the federation, in 2021, the mainland new energy vehicle retail sales of 2.989 million units, the penetration rate reached 14.8%, a significant increase from 5.8% in 2020, 2022 is expected to exceed 6 million units. According to the characteristics of the S-type penetration curve, after the penetration rate of new energy vehicles exceeds 10% in 2021, the penetration rate of new energy will accelerate in the next few years, which means that the development of China's new energy automobile industry will increase rapidly. Under the background of intensified electrification competition, 2022 will undoubtedly become a key year for the new pattern of global automotive PCBs.

According to Strategy Analytics, hybrid vehicles and pure electric vehicles currently account for 47% and 65% of the automotive electronics value of new energy vehicles, respectively. With the increasing proportion of automotive electronics in the cost of the vehicle, it has also led to the growth of automotive PCB demand.

In addition to the increase in new energy vehicles, the increase in the value of single-vehicle PCB is also an important factor driving the growth of the PCB market. In the past, gasoline owners should be mainly ordinary multi-layer boards, double-panels, the amount of bicycles used is less than 1 square meter, and the value of PCBs is low, about 400-600 yuan / car.

In new energy vehicles, ADAS systems, display systems, battery systems, electronic drive systems and electronic control systems all need to use a large number of PCB boards to carry various electronic components. The use area of PCBs has increased by at least 3 times, and more attention is paid to the performance of the board, so the value of the pcb for bicycles has increased significantly.

Under the superposition of the above two factors, according to CPCA, Tianfeng Securities and other institutions, the new energy vehicle PCB board 2020-2025 market space CAGR is 51%, growing rapidly, which also drives the overall automotive electronics PCB output value of an average annual expansion of 10%.

"Last year's order intake from automotive PCB factories was extremely strong." According to industry insiders, this is mainly due to the fact that the CURRENT PCB factory is driven by the strong demand of the communication and consumer electronics industries, and the high-end process production capacity is tight, and the automotive electronics factory accelerates the single automotive plate under the lesson of the lack of cores, in order to prepare for the rapid production after the chip problem is solved.

Can you change the PCB pattern?

In fact, automotive PCBs are becoming an important performance booster for manufacturers, which is expected to change the pattern of low-end competition in domestic PCBs.

At the shareholders' meeting held recently, Chongda technology related people told Jiwei Network, "The projects that have been mass-produced in the first phase of the Zhuhai factory currently include automotive electronics-related products. Thanks to the rapid growth of the market share of existing customers in the past 2-3 years, the sales revenue of the company's related products this year is expected to increase by nearly 150% compared with the same period last year, and the scale is expected to be further expanded in 2023. In 2023, the entire PCB board market will be dominated by automotive products. ”

It is understood that the first phase of Chongda Technology in the second quarter of 2021 trial production, the main production of 4-8 layers used in the automotive, central control, security, optoelectronic field of large-scale PCB products, the annual design capacity of 2.7 million square meters, the current production capacity climb is relatively smooth, other remaining production lines will be put into production step by step according to the market environment in 2022-2023.

Chongda Technology pointed out that the automotive PCB products produced by the company are supplied to BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen, Toyota and other automotive terminals; there are also PCB products that supply assisted driving systems, mainly used in visual systems, such as camera modules used for assisted driving.

In the field of automotive electronics, with the development of the automotive industry, the application market for high-end PCB products will continue to expand, including but not limited to display modules, power control systems, sensors and other related components.

FPC (flexible circuit board) has the advantages of high integration, automatic assembly, large-scale cost reduction, high efficiency, safety and reliability, lightweight, etc., suitable for power battery wiring harness, etc., or will replace the traditional copper wiring harness in the future. Taking the battery module usage of a new energy vehicle at 6-16 to measure, each module uses 1-2 FPC, and the FPC usage of the bicycle will also be greatly improved.

(Proofreading/New)