Image Sensor Market Forecast to Contract in 2022

Market research company IC Insights predicted that the global image sensor market will suffer negative growth this year.

The image sensor market has enjoyed double-digit growth for years as its use in smartphones and automobiles has increased. But it is expected to record a negative growth rate for the first time in 13 years.

As the image sensor business is expected to stagnate following the memory business, Samsung Electronics is in a situation to pull out all the stops to secure profitability in the semiconductor business. The company is expected to focus on DDR5 DRAMs and premium image sensors with 100 million pixels or more, while aiming for a rebound in the foundry business, where it is competing with TSMC in Taiwan.

Global sales of CMOS image sensors are expected to reach US$18.6 billion (about 25,854 billion won) in 2022, down 7 percent from 2021, IC Insights said on Sept. 18. Their shipments are also expected to slide by 11 percent from 2021.

A CMOS image sensor is a device that captures images in a camera like the retina in the human eye. It enjoyed double-digit growth from 2016 to 2021 thanks to competition in smartphone image quality, the growth of the autonomous vehicle market and an increase in its use in IoT devices and home appliances.

IC Insights analyzed that image sensor sales also became sluggish as demand for video conferencing decreased and sales of smartphones and PCs fell. Overall image sensor demand is contracting amid inflation, the lockdown of major cities in China and a U.S. curb on exports to China, it added. As image sensor sales are sluggish, Sony, the No. 1 player, is also taking a hit. According to IC Insights' tally, Sony's CMOS image sensor sales in the April-June period shrank by 12.4 percent from the previous quarter. 

According to market researcher Gartner, Sony ranked first in the world with a 43.9 percent share, while Samsung Electronics came in second with 17.9 percent and SK Hynix sixth in 2021.

In particular, Samsung Electronics is fostering its image sensor business as one of the core businesses. It unveiled new 200-million pixel-image sensors last year and this year, demonstrating its unrivaled competitiveness in microfabrication.

Although Samsung Electronics does not disclose the proportion of image sensors in its overall semiconductor sales in the semiconductor sector, market research company statistics suggest that they account for around 20 percent (about 4 trillion won) of its total non-memory sales (about 21.44 trillion won in 2021).

Industry insiders expect that Samsung Electronics will focus on profitability-oriented premium products in the image sensor and memory businesses and put more effort into expanding its market share in the foundry business. TrendForce forecast that the foundry market will grow by about 14 percent in terms of capacity in 2022.