For a long time, overseas companies represented by TDK, MISUMI, SEMCO, and ALPS have dominated the global VCM market all the year round. Although domestic manufacturers have made considerable progress, first-tier brands will basically choose products from several overseas brands for high-end flagship models. In the long run, the capital market's attention to the VCM motor industry is also significantly less than that of the upstream and downstream chip, lens and module industries. The reason is that Chinese VCM manufacturers have been unable to maintain a solid position in the high-end flagship market.
However, this situation was reversed at the end of this year
First of all, China's leading VCM motor technology leader, LNZL Electronic Technology Group, received investment from Huawei Hubble in November this year.
In early August 2020, China’s largest OIS VCM manufacturer CDYX Optoelectronics Technology Group announced an investment of 5 billion yuan to establish an OIS VCM R&D and production base.
Then, another leading manufacturer of VCM motors in China, HNHZ Electronic Technology Group, successfully went public. For this IPO, HNHZ plans to raise 482 million yuan to invest in two-way open-loop motor construction projects, optical image stabilization motor construction projects, R&D center construction projects and supplementary liquidity.
HNHZ Customer Reference
Sunny Optical, Q Tech, O-film, Trulyopto, Luxvisions, Tolitech, Tongxingda, MCNEX, Cammsys, Namuga…
The final products are used in smart terminal brands of Huawei, Xiaomi, OPPO, vivo, Lenovo, Samsung, Nokia, LG, and Amazon.
On December 27, the Shanghai Stock Exchange also disclosed the basic situation of the listing guidance record of SHBL Electronic Technology Group.
The reason why VCM was able to gain the favor of capital, industry insiders pointed out: “Because ultra-high pixels have become the standard equipment of high-end flagship models in the past two years, the lens is getting heavier and heavier, and the requirements for VCM are getting higher and higher. A 7P or even 8P lens to match the ordinary VCM, the image quality presented will not be good, and the changes in technological development trends further reflect the importance of VCM and market demand."
Another Chinese VCM motor manufacturer said: "On the other hand, the focus motor is also one of the key components under the general trend of domestic substitution. However, for the components that move in the product, the end customer is relatively high in risk and reliability. Therefore, the domestic replacement of motors takes longer than other components. With the current changes in the international situation and the accumulation of domestic manufacturers, this industry is also ushering in the "spring."
Although the current environment has created a "hotbed" with industrial and capital advantages for China local VCM manufactuers, its realization of domestic substitution still faces very big tests and pressures.
The increase in the number of glasses in optical lenses is a direct result of the overall weight of the lens becoming heavier and heavier, so that the thrust of the suspension motor, which is widely used in the industry, is no longer sufficient to promote such a lens. Therefore, two mainstream solutions, SMA (memory metal) motor and ball type (ball type) motor, have appeared in the industry chain.
For a long time, this market has been dominated by Japanese and Korean VCM motor manufacturers. Moreover, these overseas companies have established a fairly complete patent layout in the early stage. Limited by patent barriers, it is more difficult for Chinese VCM manufacturers to make major breakthroughs in the field of high-end flagship products.
A CTO of a VCM motor manufacturer told Hay Think: "The SMA motor was launched by a British VCM design company named Cambridge Mechatroincs. At present, Japan's TDK and SHBL Electronics have mass-produced SMA motors through patent authorization. The type motor is the main patented product of Samsung Electro-Mechanics. At present, only one of them is mainly produced, most of which are used in Samsung Electronics products; a small part is supplied to domestic terminal brands such as OPPO, vivo, and Xiaomi."
In addition, the slow ramp-up of high-end product yields has once again lengthened the timeline for domestic manufacturers to achieve replacement.
The above-mentioned manufacturers also pointed out: "So far, both SMA and ball-type motors still have obvious shortcomings. On the one hand, there is the problem of mass production yield. No matter TDK or the road, the mass production yield of SMA motors of the two manufacturers is not Reaching the yield rate of ordinary VCM motors leads to high product unit prices; the problem of the ball structure may cause the lens to lag and fail to process images in time."
The reason why Apple abandoned TDK's SMA and Samsung Electric's ball motors, and chose to develop its own Sensor-Shift (sensor shift) technology is mainly because the main suppliers of these two types of solutions have insufficient yield and product performance.