With Samsung Electric's decision to withdraw from the RFPCB business, Apple's iPhone RFPCB market is facing a reshuffle.
The proportion of BH companies with similar supply to Samsung Motor will increase to about 50% this year, and is expected to reach 70% next year.
In the second half of this year, the proportion of RFPCB supply for iPhone models was 50% for BH, 30% for Samsung Motor and 10% for YP Electronics.
The RFPCB is a part connecting the OLED panel and the main substrate. Because RFPCB has two characteristics of firmness and folding, product design is more convenient, and electrical signal transmission is also fast. Compared with the traditional FPCB, it is a high value-added component.
With Samsung Electric quitting the RFPCB business this year, the shares of BH and YP Electronics are expected to rise. The proportion of BH supply of the iPhone next year that Samsung Electric does not participate in the development of RFPCB may reach 70%, while the proportion of YP Electronics is expected to reach 30%.
Previously, because Apple mainly used RFPCB of iPhone OLED panel produced by Samsung Display, YP Electronics, the supply chain of LG Display, accounted for a small proportion. But next year Samsung Electric will exit the Samsung display supply chain, and the remaining BH, YP Electronics are expected to benefit from it.
Samsung Motor is likely to produce RFPCB until November this year. It is expected to sell the RFPCB factory in Vietnam from August. The sale may take place more than twice.
After Samsung Motor withdrew from the RFPCB business, whether Apple would introduce new PCB suppliers, and who would receive the RFPCB orders from Samsung Motor and Samsung Electronics became the focus of the industry.
And the most notable is the industry chain company of YP Electronics Group, Inter Flex. In 2017, Inter Flex had supplied Apple's iPhone X OLED panel RFPCB and touch screen panel (TSP) RFPCB, but it was removed from Apple's supply chain due to black screen defects and other reasons.
It is reported that Gyeong Gyehyeon, the president of Samsung Electric Machinery Co., Ltd. who took office at the beginning of last year, issued an instruction to evaluate and withdraw from the cause of RFPCB and wireless communication module.
Samsung Motor suffered an annual loss of 50 billion won (400 billion won in sales) (about 290 million yuan/2.3 billion yuan) due to fixed expenses and other burdens. Samsung Electric was originally scheduled to withdraw from the iPhone 12 series last year, but the withdrawal time was postponed for more than a year.
Samsung Electric's business of selling wireless communication modules was also aborted in May this year. Chemtronics, which signed the relevant business transfer contract with Samsung Electric in January, announced: "Although it signed the contract to purchase Samsung Electric's wifi communication module business for 105.5 billion Korean won (about 600 million yuan) in January, it canceled the contract in consideration of the possibility of market upheaval."