The latest research from global market intelligence firm TrendForce finds that the usual demand surge related to the year-end holiday season is not materializing during this second half of the year due to several factors. First, the data about the global economy continue to show a negative outlook, and the consumer electronics market is unable to shake off the constraining influence of high inflation and rising interest rates. Furthermore, at the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party that was held this October, the leadership of the Chinese government made it clear that the strict zero-COVID policy will remain in force. Lastly, ODMs are having problems lowering their inventories, and the whole supply chain from the upstream to the downstream is still experiencing inventory-related issues as well. Hence, in view of the underwhelming peak season and ODMs’ cautious approach to stocking up, TrendForce estimates that the average BB (book-to-bill) ratio of MLCC suppliers will have slipped slightly to 0.81 in 4Q22.
According to the latest TrendForce research, the mass production schedule of new Sapphire Rapids products has been delayed due to the poor yield rate of the Intel 7 process. At present, the production yield rate of Sapphire Rapids is estimated at only 50~60%, which affects mainstream Sapphire Rapids MCC products. The company’s mass production planning has been deferred from 4Q22 to 1H23. This delay in the mass production schedule not only affects the ODM material preparation cycle, but also greatly reduces the proportion of OEMs and CSPs introducing Sapphire Rapids this year. AMD will be the biggest beneficiary. We estimate the market share of AMD x86 server CPU to be approximately 15% in 2022 and rise to 22% in 2023.
According to the latest TrendForce research, pandemic-induced materials shortages abated in the second half of this year and the supply and delivery of short-term materials has recovered significantly. However, assuming materials supply is secure and demand can be met, the annual growth rate of server shipments in 2023 is estimated to be only 3.7%, which is lower than 5.1% in 2022.
Affected by tight wafer supply, lead time for SSD controller IC and PMIC components was prolonged to 32 weeks in 2021. All controller IC suppliers generally give priority to supplying NAND Flash manufacturers, so production at module factories could not meet SSD demand in the retail market during that time. In 2H21, the supply of SSD-related components improved quarter by quarter and various module manufacturers boosted their SSD shipments in order to upsurge their annual performance. According to TrendForce research, SSD shipments through global distribution channels reached 127 million units in 2021, with an annual growth rate of 11%.
Current U.S. sanctions on China have extended their reach to strike at HPC and sectors such as aerospace, automotive market, and military industry. TrendForce indicates, the market for high-end computing chips (including CPU, GPU, etc.) has borne the brunt of these restrictions at this stage, while those providing related storage such as DRAM and NAND Flash also face potential supply disruption. At present, this not only includes domestic companies in mainland China but also extends to related US-based suppliers. Among them, server companies that rely on high-intensity computing will face greater scrutiny.