September 25th, the leading MLCC manufacturer Murata announced to build a new plant with a total investment of over 40 billion Yen.The new plant will start in October 2018 and complete in 2019, the new plant currently under construction in Fukui city)
The financial report released by Murata shows that the sales of MLCC increased due to the high-performance of smart phones and EVs, which boosted the combined revenue of the previous quarter (April-June 2018) by 25.7% from the same period last year to 345.508 billion yen, which is the record high, the combined profit growth of 15.2% to 48.151 billion yen, combined net profit growth of 17.6% to 38.984 billion yen. Murata capacitor sector (mainly MLCC) sales increased by 31.3% over the same period last year to 126.507 billion yen.
According to Japanese media reports, the demand of Apple's new iPhone products for MLCC will expand after the second half of 2018, coupled with the hot demand for electric vehicles (EV), self-driving vehicles and the commercialization of 5G, resulting in serious supply shortage of MLCC. Murata takes up around 40% of global market share, and annual shipments are about 1 trillion pieces.
According to reports, some analysts pointed out that weakening smartphone sales may have caused MLCC demand to drop. The US-China trade friction may lead to a slowdown in the global economy, and the export of “Made in China”electronic products equipped with MLCC to the United States is likely to decrease.Nevertheless, analysts believe that even in this case, the MLCC may continue to present a shortage of supply (out of stock) in the coming year.
Earlier ESMC reportshave mentioned that on the 8th of June, Murata announced the production increase to meet the increasing demand of MLCC. The production subsidiary "Fukui Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd." has obtained land for construction, and plans to invest 29 billion yen to build a new MLCC plant. The plant is expected to start construction in September 2018 and be completed in December 2019.
