In the first quarter, under the influence of international trade, clients are actively reducing the impact of their inventory. Thus, revenues of large PCB factories such as Zhen Ding and Compeq have fallen drastically. As the trade war starts to slow down, these manufacturers have gradually found that the current market panic has significantly turned for the better compared to December last year. Besides, since customer inventories are rather too low, it should help market demand to increase in the second quarter. 

At the same time, with the context of global 5G communication competition becoming gradually clearer, the demands for 5G (Pre-5G) have, step-by-step, progressively risen. The management of Tripod-tech also points out that the deployment demands for 5G should, starting from the second quarter, be conducive to an increase in order momentum for the PCB industry. 

Shen Ching-fang, chairman of Zhen Ding, said that the timing of 5G for full-scale commercial applications should be around 2022. However, the infrastructure of operators will accelerate, while Zhen Ding has, right now, begun work on developing array antennas, FPC antennas, RF modules, antennas, and the integration of FPC with transmission cables, and others. Besides, Zhen Ding optimistically believes that revenue in the second quarter will go a lot higher than NT$12 billion. 

As for other factors favorable for large-scale PCB factories in the second quarter, it lies at the application of gradual proliferation with new manufacturing processes. In fact, Taiwanese PCB manufacturers such as Zhen Ding, Compeq, Kinsus, and others have been actively developing the SLP process. In the past, SLP was available to only one customer, Apple. At present, it is expected that there will be new applications apart from Apple's mobile phone products. Shen Ching-fang also indicates that Zhen Ding’s SLP has, indeed, shipped to other new customers for applications other than for mobile phones. 

As for the source and price trend of copper foil substrate (CCL) that commands a rather high direct manufacturing cost in the PCB industry, Zhen Ding believes that it will not be affected this year, mainly because there will be new production capacity subsequently developed by EMC, Iteq, and Tuc, and their total production capacity should increase by 16% as compared to that of last year. Since the initial input investment of each manufacturer is high, they will, therefore, aggressively work to get rid of CCL. On the other hand, the tremendous pressure of price competition helps maintain the price stability of raw materials, and there may even be the profile of a decreasing trend. (News source: Cnyes)