Camera Module Industry News Brief

1. Industry Market Overview

The global camera module industry maintains steady growth with obvious market differentiation. Consumer mobile phone modules see slowing growth, while vehicle-mounted, industrial vision and security modules become core growth drivers. China leads the world in production capacity and shipment volume, and the domestic substitution of the whole industrial chain is accelerating continuously. Leading enterprises consolidate their advantages, and local upstream and downstream supporting industries keep expanding market share.

2. Market Demand

Driven by edge AI vision technology, high-definition, intelligent and low-power camera modules are in strong demand. The intelligent upgrading of automobiles greatly boosts the demand for automotive cameras, and high-level autonomous driving raises the quantity and specification of on-board cameras. Emerging fields including smart home, service robots, AR/VR and medical imaging continuously release incremental demand. Low-end universal modules face oversupply and fierce price competition, while high-end customized modules enjoy ample profit margins

3. Development Trend of Civil Camera Modules

Civil modules are developing towards high pixel, large sensor size, periscope telephoto lens and optical image stabilization, featuring ultra-thin and miniaturized design. Computational photography and multi-camera fusion technology are widely applied, making imaging algorithms a core competitive advantage. WLO wafer-level optical modules are rapidly popularized driven by foldable phones and portable smart devices. 3D vision, ToF and face recognition modules are gradually applied in more civilian scenarios.

4. Development Trend of Industrial Camera Modules

Industrial modules focus on high frame rate, global shutter, high definition and low distortion to meet high-speed industrial inspection needs. Products feature wide temperature resistance, dustproof, waterproof and anti-vibration performance to adapt to harsh industrial environments. Embedded AI modules become mainstream, realizing on-site automatic detection, identification and measurement. Multi-spectral, infrared night vision and 3D industrial vision modules are widely used in lithium battery, 3C electronics and auto parts industries.

5. Downstream Industry Dynamics

• Smartphone: The market is stock-oriented, relying on imaging innovation to boost sales, with overall shipment growth remaining mild.
• Smart Vehicle: The penetration rate of L2+ assisted driving keeps rising, bringing booming demand for front-view high-definition, surround-view and in-cabin monitoring modules.
• Security Monitoring: Driven by high-definition upgrading and intelligent renovation, the market enjoys huge space for stock equipment replacement.
• Intelligent Manufacturing: Machine vision gradually replaces manual inspection, sustaining strong demand for industrial camera modules.
• AR/VR Hardware: Rising shipment of metaverse devices fuels rapid growth of micro camera and eye-tracking dedicated modules

6. Core Industry Conclusions

• The industry growth driving force has shifted from consumer electronics to multi-track development led by vehicle-mounted and industrial vision sectors.
• Technological upgrading and scenario expansion jointly drive the industry, with high-end, intelligent and customized development as the long-term mainstream trend.
• The localization of the whole industrial chain is an irreversible trend, bringing dual opportunities of technological breakthrough and market share improvement for domestic manufacturers.