Recently, China's leading PCB manufacturer SZSN Electronic Technology Group said in an investigation by the agency that the company's orders from communications, data centers (including servers) and medical services are relatively full, and the capacity utilization rate continues to be at a high level.
In terms of PCB business, the proportion of servers in SZSN's PCB business continues to increase. In 2018, the server accounted for about 4% of the company's PCB business revenue, and about 6% in 2019; in the first quarter of 2020, the server accounted for 8% of PCB business revenue. Considering the continuous growth of the PCB business itself, the revenue growth rate of the server field is higher than the overall growth rate of the business.
Regarding the impact of copper price changes on raw materials, SZSN stated that the main raw materials used in the company's daily production include copper clad laminates (CCL), prepregs, copper foil, copper balls, gold salts, dry films and inks, among which copper clad laminates are the most important for PCB production. Raw materials are supplied by upstream copper clad laminate manufacturers, and the price is not directly linked to the copper price; copper foil, copper balls, etc., which are more related to the copper price, are used in relatively small amounts, which has a limited impact on the overall price of raw materials.
Regarding the layout of the automotive electronics market, SZSN said that automotive electronics is one of the areas that the company is optimistic about and focuses on in the future. From the perspective of energy and power, automobiles are divided into oil and gas energy vehicles and new energy vehicles. Among them, the newly added electric drives, batteries, and electronic control systems have new technical requirements for PCB products, and technical capabilities are the main competitiveness. In addition, due to the continuous advancement of intelligent driving technology, the application of ADAS in vehicles is becoming more and more popular, driving the rapid growth of related PCB product markets. New energy vehicles and ADAS are the company's main focus in the field of automotive electronics. The company actively invests in research and development of automotive electronics related technologies, accumulates production capacity, and has cooperated with some well-known manufacturers at home and abroad. With the gradual improvement of 5G construction in the future and the emergence of various terminal applications (Internet of Things, Internet of Things, etc.), automobiles may also become large mobile terminals, and the company's technological advantages in the field of communications will have the opportunity to be further extended.
In 2020, SZSN capital expenditure is mainly the construction expenditure of Nantong Shutong Phase II, the intelligent transformation of the original factory, and various technological transformations including 5G transformation. Among them, Nantong Shutong Phase II has been completed, and It will be put into production in March 2020 and is currently in the stage of ramping up production capacity.