News description
    Following a decline in global automobile sales as well as more PCB manufacturers venturing into the production of automobiles, the gross margin of automobile PCBs, which has always been higher than the traditional PCBs, is facing price competitions. Furthermore, automobile PCB has gradually been disregarded as a niche market and it has been considered that ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) have become the most promising automobile PCB application domain.

 

Impact analysis
    According to the practices in previous years, the seasonal nature of automobile PCBs is different from other PCB products. The first quarter of each year is often considered to be the vigorous season of automobile PCBs. In the first quarter of 2019, however, the PCB products produced by Taiwanese companies on both sides of the Taiwan Strait for the automobile application market slipped by 4.3%, reflecting the following facts:

(1) After the global automobile market has shown a decrease in shipments in 2018, the automobile market is likely to encounter a critical decline .

(2) Although the proportion of electronic parts and the size of PCBs used in a single vehicle have increased, more manufacturers have joined to make automobile PCBs. As a result of some non-safety PCB products facing low-cost purchases from customers, they are affecting the average unit price and output growth rate.

(3) Based on the performances of different PCB manufacturers, those emphasizing on ADAS PCBs for the use in speed control, lane control, brake control, etc. will have more growth potential.

 

    Vehicle speed control, lane control, brake control, automatic parking, etc. are classified as ADAS and have been regarded as one of the technologies with the greatest kinetic growth in automobile electronics applications in the recent years. In 2015, only approximately 10% of vehicles in the global automobile market were equipped with ADAS. In 2020, however, the penetration rate of ADAS in automobiles has been estimated to reach 30%. Particularly in the European automobile market, the proportion of vehicles equipped with ADAS is currently close to 90%.

 

    Currently, each automobile electronics application in ADAS must process large amounts of data in real time. Moreover, in the future, it will also be necessary to rely on the server configured on the vehicle to handle edge calculations. Thus, the required support from high-frequency/high-speed PCBs is crucial. In addition, if the manufacturers involved in the automobile PCB market remain concentrated on making traditional vehicle PCBs relating to communication, automobile body parts, entertainment, etc., they are likely to be affected by the stagnation of automobile sales and the kinetic growth of such automobile PCB manufacturers will be weakened. Conversely, those that focus on manufacturing ADAS-related applications would demonstrate a stronger growth.