>>MLCC Industry Faces "Longest Shortage Cycle in History"… Supply Deficit Expected to Persist Beyond 2027
- Major Taiwanese MLCC makers—Yageo, Walsin, Holy Stone, and PDC—are strongly upbeat on the industry outlook, driven by AI demand. The industry believes this shortage could surpass the 2018 passive component supercycle.
- Walsin in particular projected that the MLCC shortage could persist beyond 2027. The company expects demand to rise even further once AI PCs and AI edge devices—markets far larger than AI servers—begin to proliferate in earnest.
- Yageo's book-to-bill (BB) ratio has already moved above 1.3x, and the company is responding to rising orders by ramping line utilization and clearing bottlenecks.
- That said, the pace of capacity expansion is constrained by equipment shortages. According to Holy Stone, lead times for high-end MLCC production equipment run 1 to 1.5 years, making capacity additions difficult. Holy Stone expects capacity to grow 20~30% YoY this year and a further 30~40% in 2027, but warned that next year's supply shortage could in fact intensify.
- Walsin is likewise tripling CAPEX this year and pursuing capacity expansion for a second consecutive year, but noted that lead times from Japanese equipment vendors run 6 to 12 months, making it hard for supply growth to keep pace with demand. AI infrastructure demand, in its view, is only just beginning.