According to the latest research from TrendForce, the MLCC market in the second quarter of 2026 shows a clear divergence characterized by strong AI application demand and weak consumer demand. The international situation has driven up prices for oil and natural gas, leading to increased energy and transportation costs. Consumer Price Index (CPI) figures for March rose broadly across major economies, with inflation expected to widen, thereby dampening end-consumer confidence and corporate capital expenditure willingness. These ripple effects have gradually transmitted to the electronic component supply chain. As prices for raw metal materials such as silver, aluminum, and copper have climbed, the costs of passive components including beads, inductors, and resistors have increased effective April 1st, with average price hikes ranging from 10% to 15%.
Short-term demand is being supported by OEMs stockpiling inventory ahead of schedule. Tight supply of key components such as memory, CPUs, and HDDs/SSDs, combined with rising upstream metal and passive component prices, has prompted notebook brands including Dell and HP to initiate strategic component procurement. Some orders for mid-to-low-end models scheduled for the third quarter have been moved forward to the second quarter for production and shipment, aiming to lock in relatively lower expected prices, stimulate purchasing interest, and boost revenue. This wave of early inventory building has been reflected in the March revenue and shipment performances of ODMs such as Quanta Computer, Wistron, and Compal Electronics. However, as OEMs have not revised their full-year production estimates upward, the risks of a weak second-half peak season and order pullbacks are simultaneously increasing. The demand ratio between the first and second halves of the year may shift towards 55:45.
Supply and demand structures are diverging, fostering an upward pricing sentiment. Analyzing the supply side, MLCC suppliers' capacity utilization rates continued to recover from February to April 2026. Driven by strong demand for AI servers, Japanese and Korean manufacturers are actively shifting consumer-grade capacity to high-end MLCC production. The overall book-to-bill ratio rose from 0.89 in March to 0.92 in April, with key players like Murata, Samsung Electro-Mechanics, and Taiyo Yuden maintaining stable ratios above 1.
Regarding pricing, Taiyo Yuden has already increased prices for mid-to-low capacitance consumer-grade products and some automotive MLCCs by approximately 6-13% for its distributors in China. Companies like YAGEO and Walsin Technology have engaged in individual negotiations for a small number of loss-making items but have not yet announced comprehensive price increases. While major players Murata and Samsung Electro-Mechanics have not made public statements, the overall industry pricing sentiment is shifting from a wait-and-see attitude to tentative increases.
Looking ahead, TrendForce believes that as ASIC projects for cloud service providers are expected to ramp up from the end of the third quarter, coupled with tight supply and demand for high-end MLCCs and continued capacity allocation倾斜 towards higher value-added products, high-end MLCC prices are anticipated to transition from consolidation to a moderate uptrend in the second half of 2026. However, inventory correction pressures accumulated from the PC/notebook pre-stocking, along with changes in the international situation and monetary policies, will remain the primary risk factors suppressing overall demand and price performance for consumer-grade MLCCs.
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