What's happening in the MLCC market

First off, MLCC as a whole is a $15B market. MLCCs for servers were a $1.3B market in 2025 ($600m for AI servers, $700m for general servers)
The AI server MLCC market is growing at 80%+ CAGR, and the general server MLCC market will also accelerate due to agentic AI increasing CPU demand (around 30%-40% CAGR)
We will see negative growth in the smartphone/mobile MLCC market for at least 2026-27.
Humanoids are another future high-growth market for MLCCs
Book-to-bill ratio for most MLCC suppliers is over 1 now

Reasons for price hikes-
High Nickel & Silver are affecting all segments
There is a supply-demand mismatch in the high-end (high capacitance, high voltage) segment, which is used in autos & servers
High-end MLCC lead time is over 20 weeks
Spot/distributor prices have increased by 20%-40% for low capacitance & consumer device MLCCs due to hoarding and double booking, especially in China
OEM contracts have not seen large price hikes yet

What's happening now:
Rapid capacity expansion happening across the industry
Murata expects blended ASP prices to remain flat (ASP going down in consumer electronics, expansion in AI server market)
Tier 1 players like Murata, Taiyo Yuden, SEMCO building capacity to serve AI server MLCC market
This will create opportunities for Tier 2/3 and Chinese suppliers to expand in the mid to low end market (Macronix effect)

Future:
MLCC production equiment & raw materials suppliers will be the biggest beneficiary of this CAPEX boom
MLCC producer stocks have performed well, and it is finally spilling to raw material/equipment producers
I expect them to outperform MLCC producers now

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