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TrendForce: Expansion of high-end demand and increasing stockpiling in consumer channels are expected to catalyze a reversal in MLCC prices
According to the latest survey by TrendForce, the booming demand for AI chips has led to a tight supply and demand situation for high-end MLCCs, and has also compressed the supply of consumer MLCCs, prompting some agents to initiate preventive stockpiling, while suppliers respond by adjusting prices. Recent bargaining results between ODMs and suppliers also indicate that the overall average price decline of MLCCs has hit a new low in nearly three years, indicating that the MLCC price cycle has reached a critical point of turning around.
Observing the changes in demand for high-end MLCCs, we see that from NVIDIA's GB200 single board equipped with approximately 6,500 MLCCs, to the next-generation Rubin, where the thermal design power (TDP) has doubled and the complexity of power management has significantly increased, driving the single board usage to nearly double to around 12,000 units, becoming the main source of imbalance between supply and demand for high-end MLCCs. Meanwhile, the orders for ASIC self-developed chips from North American cloud service providers (CSPs) such as Microsoft, AWS (Amazon Web Services), Google, and Meta, as well as advanced packaging orders for CoWoS, continue to increase, further supporting the long-term rigid demand for high-end MLCCs. As a result, major suppliers in Japan and South Korea are shifting their production capacity towards AI applications, causing the supply elasticity of consumer products to narrow quarter by quarter.
Faced with the continuous tightening and control of production capacity and inventory of consumer MLCCs, some agents have begun precautionary stockpiling of X5R standard products (capacitance values ranging from 1000p to 10u), resulting in an asymmetric demand phenomenon of "declining actual orders from ODMs and increasing additional orders from distribution channels". In April 2026, Taiyo Yuden took the lead in raising the prices of consumer low-capacitance and automotive MLCCs by approximately 6% to 13%, triggering a chain reaction in the channel market and prompting another leading player, SEMCO (Samsung Electronics), to actively consider following suit and raising agent pricing. This is aimed at curbing the spread of stockpiling in distribution channels, reducing the risk of repeated orders, optimizing the profit structure of consumer products, and ensuring reasonable resource allocation for high value-added production capacity.
According to a survey conducted by TrendForce, some ODMs have completed the price negotiation process for the third quarter of 2026 in early May. Driven by the rising prices in the supply chain, the overall average decline in MLCC prices is less than 0.5%, hitting a new low in the past three years, fully reflecting that the pricing power of sellers is significantly recovering. With most ODMs starting a new round of price negotiation from late May, whether the current atmosphere can catalyze a comprehensive reversal in MLCC prices will become a key focus for future observation.
TrendForce, a consulting firm, stated that currently, high-end MLCC is driven by AI Server and ASIC packaging and testing orders, resulting in tight supply, which is unlikely to improve in the short term. In terms of consumer products, due to Taiyo Yuden's price increase and SEMCO's evaluation and follow-up, the bottom support for prices is gradually taking shape. The subsequent pricing stance of Murata and SEMCO, the actual volume of ASIC orders in the second half of the year, and the outcome of the new round of price negotiations by ODMs will jointly determine the strength and sustainability of this wave of price reversal.
