‘Rice of IT Industry’
Samsung Electro-Mechanics will build a 500-billion-won multi-layer ceramic capacitor (MLCC) plant for electronic equipment in Tianjin, China. The company is operating a large-scale MLCC complex for information technology (IT) devices. An MLCC line for electronic devices will be expanded here.
"We will hold a board meeting next week to discuss the MLCC line expansion in China," said an official of Samsung Electro-Mechanics on Sept. 16. “The MLCC line will be the second of its kind after the first one in Busan.”
Experts say that this line will be completed around the end of next year with full-scale production of MLCCs, which are called the "rice of the IT industry," slated to kick off after 2020. In particular, Harman and Samsung Electronics are expected to benefit from their vertical integration of parts with Samsung Electro-Mechanics as they selected the automotive electronic device business as a future growth engine item.
The Samsung Group announced in August that the business group will invest 25 trillion won for three years in AI, 5G telecommunication, bio and electric devices.
An MLCC stores electricity in electronic products, and sends it out when parts such as semiconductors need it. Demand for MLCCs has been skyrocketing, as IT products such as those for electric cars and autonomous vehicles and smartphones have become more sophisticated. Japan's Murata is the No. 1 company with a global market share of 44% and Samsung Electro-Mechanics places second with 21%. Japan is enjoying a 73% share of the global market as first-ranked Murata, third-placed TDK (15%) and fourth-standing Daiyo Yuden (14%) are all Japanese companies.