The Analysis of the Development of the Smartphone FPC Business

A large number of FPCs are used in smartphones for the connection of parts and motherboards, such as display modules, fingerprint modules, camera modules, antennas, vibrators, etc., with the continuous penetration of fingerprint recognition, the camera upgrades to dual camera and three-camera as well as the use of OLEDs, the use of FPC will continue to increase.

With the gradual popularization of dual-camera and three-camera, the future growth of camera modules is still relatively large. It is expected to reach 45% in 2019. Huawei mobile phone is a strong promoter of dual-camera. In 2017, dual-camera shipments accounted for more than 50%, Vivo, Apple is close behind. According to the survey data, sales of CMOS image sensors reached US$11.5 billion (+9%) in 2017. From 2016 to 2021, the average annual growth rate of the CMOS image sensor market was around 8.7%.

Major mobile phone brand dual-camera penetration situation:

Source of data: Public data collation

At the same time, with the release of Huawei and Samsung foldable mobile phones, future foldable mobile phones will push up the demand for flexible AMOLEDs. According to the survey data, shipments of flexible AMOLEDs are expected to reach 180 million units in 2018, three times more than the 46.5 million units in 2015. It is estimated that shipments will reach 336 million units by 2020, accounting for more than 50% of AMOLED shipments. In the field of smart phones, 2017 shipments of flexible On-CellAMOLEDs reached 96.3 million, an increase of 154% year-on-year, accounting for 6.3%; iPhone X uses GF2OLED panels, and total shipments of On-cell+GF2 AMOLEDs reached 9.9% in 2017, and this proportion is expected to be about 30% in 2022.

At present, the mainstream smartphone FPC usage is 10-15 pieces, and the iPhone X usage is even 20 pieces. Combined with the above analysis, as the product upgrades, the amount of single-machine FPC usage will gradually increase. Apple and Samsung rarely purchase FPC products from China’s suppliers, and “HOV” has been opened to China’s suppliers, and there is a large import substitution space in the future. Apple FPC suppliers are mainly Japanese, Taiwan and US domestic suppliers. Samsung is mainly a Korean local supplier. In addition to Japanese and Taiwan manufacturers, “HOV” will also purchase from China's suppliers.