In 2022, the negative effects brought about by a series of events such as the epidemic, war, inflation, and the continuous economic downturn have cast a shadow of different sizes on all walks of life, and the downstream terminal demand has shrunk sharply, under the influence of this, the "cutting orders" storm has recently erupted in many areas of the consumer electronics industry and continued to spread to the supply chain.
The mobile phone industry is the first to "burst" the information of cutting orders
According to Tianfeng International analyst Guo Mingqi, xiaomi and OV in the first quarter have cut 170 million units because their sales status is less than expected, and they will cut 100 million units next. "Everyone has lowered their sales expectations, which is 20-30% lower than the target at the beginning of the year."
The latest reports of relevant financial media have further confirmed this news, reporting that Xiaomi related sources revealed that it was originally planned to supply 200 million smart phones in 2022, but has notified suppliers that it will be reduced to 160 million to 180 million. Vivo and OPPO will also reduce orders in April-June and July-September by about 20% compared with previous plans.
Even Apple, which has been unbeatable in the global mobile phone market for many years, is not immune in such an environment. It is reported that Apple will cut about 30% of AirPods 3 orders in the second and third quarters of this year, while Apple's new iPhone SE released in March will also cut 20%.
Compared with Apple's practice of reducing production of low-end models, Samsung Electronics' "cutting orders" covers mobile phones at all price points, including flagship machines. According to South Korean media, Samsung Electronics may cut the production of mobile phones by 30 million units this year, from the original planned 310 million units, down to 280 million units.
"We have noticed the news that some head mobile phone brands have cut orders", a consumer electronics industry insider pointed out that due to inflation and the epidemic, the purchasing power of consumers is being reconstructed, the consumption of non-daily necessities has been compressed, and the public's consumption budget for thousands or even tens of thousands of yuan of electronic products has been reduced, which is the demand-side challenge that the consumer electronics industry must face.
The decline in orders is not only in the mobile phone industry, but has now spread to PCs, televisions and other fields. A person who showed the industry chain told the 21st Century Business Herald reporter: "This year's orders have been greatly affected, and the order cut is more obvious, and now the overall order demand decline in the industry is about ten percent." ”
According to supply chain sources, first-line PC manufacturers such as Lenovo, HP, Acer, Asus, etc., are all downgrading this year's order volume, a decline of about double digit percentage. Brand factories began to notify suppliers to revise down their annual shipping targets in the second quarter.
Some international institutions such as Morgan Stanley and Barclays have also lowered their shipment expectations for HP and Dell, and even Goldman Sachs analysts have removed Dell from the list of convinced. Research and research agency TrendForce also said that in the first half of 2022, the notebook will be under the pressure of correction, and the shipment estimate will be revised down from the original 238 million units for the whole year to 225 million units, a decrease of 8.5%. The revised outlook for 2022 shipments by notebook brands is revised downwards by about 10% to 15% on average compared with the beginning of the year.
The rapid transmission of the downward trend of terminal sales has also caused the suppliers of mobile phone chips to suffer the coldest spring in recent years. According to institutional data, MediaTek has slightly revised down the expected shipment of smart machine chips in 2022 to 570 million to 600 million sets. Among them, the annual shipment of Tianji 9000 chips may be reduced from 10 million sets to 5 million to 6 million sets, and Qualcomm may reduce the price of SM8450 and SM8475 by 30% to 40% after sm8550 is shipped at the end of this year to facilitate inventory clearance.
In addition, the agency predicts that global CMOS chip shipments may drop by 40% this year, only about 60% last year; CCM (camera module) and lens shipments are expected to decline by 20% to 30% in the third quarter of this year. In the case of CIS (CMOS Image Sensing Chip), for example, the total inventory of the top five suppliers in China has exceeded 550 million.
Guo Mingxi pointed out that because the front time of 5G chips is longer than that of general components, from the perspective of Qualcomm and MediaTek's single cuts, weak demand is likely to continue to the first quarter of 2023, which will also reduce the market's revenue and profit expectations for MediaTek and Qualcomm from the third quarter of this year to the first quarter of next year.
In addition to the main chip of the mobile phone, the camera chip, panel and other devices are also affected. TrendForce Jibang Consulting told reporters that due to the impact of the epidemic and brand inventory adjustments, the shipment of laptop panels in April this year was 17.5 million pieces, an annual decrease of 21.5%. At the same time, in 2022, the shipment volume of laptop panels will be revised down to 240 million pieces, an annual decrease of 14.9%, and there is still a possibility of downward adjustment, and the market trend must depend on the changes in the overall environment.
Jibang Consulting pointed out that on the one hand, due to the slowdown in terminal demand, the brand is facing a sales recession in the first quarter, which makes the outlook for the second quarter tend to be conservative, and the purchase volume for the panel end also plummets; On the other hand, the brand's panel inventory remains high, it is reported that the brand's laptop panel inventory before the end of April is about 8 to 12 weeks, which is 2 to 4 weeks higher than the normal water level of 6 to 8 weeks, resulting in the brand having to revise a large number of notebook panel orders to adjust inventory.
Consumer electronics demand is freezing under the electronics factory busy strain
Under the rapid freezing of consumer electronic demand, electronics factories have successively activated the strain mechanism. Panel leader AUO, mini LED leader Fucai, etc., the shareholders' meeting admitted that the second quarter performance will not be as expected, although the legal circle has not yet large-scale downward revision of the electronics industry profit estimates, but the technology manufacturers have taken the lead, the strain on the reduction of the visibility of the boom has been launched.
Panel factory color crystal frozen up to 17 billion yuan (NT$) new factory investment case, plans to reduce capital expenditure in the second half of the year, the original plan to continue to increase the equity of China Optoelectronics was also suspended; In addition, although the hardware structure of the protection component factory Xingqin Nanzi No. 3 Plant will be completed by the end of the year according to the original plan, the production line will be postponed from the first quarter of next year to the second quarter to the third quarter, in response to the current shrinking demand.
TSMC, the leading foundry of the wafer, has also been disclosed, has informed customers that from January next year, the payment term will be shortened from 30 days to 15 days, which is of course to cope with TSMC's future huge capital expenditure and improve cash flow, but the industry speculates that the central banks of various countries have raised interest rates to collect funds, the market floating capital has decreased, and cash is king to promote TSMC to collect in advance.
International manufacturers that respond to the economic environment with layoffs cover all walks of life, such as tesla, shrimp shopping, ByteDance, coinbase and IKEA, etc., all of which have exploded a wave of layoffs.
The above information sources are electronic information networks.