The continuous upgrade and innovation of mobile phone lenses has brought about the continuous explosion of lens demand. Counterpoint predicts that the penetration rate of three cameras will reach 50% in 2021. The mainstream configuration of three cameras and four cameras will directly increase the demand for the number of lenses and modules. At the same time, new fields such as smart cars, smart home appliances, and VR/AR have also brought new impetus to the growth of lens demand.
Global shipments of smartphones equipped with triple cameras are expected to increase from 230 million in 2019 to 750 million in 2022. In the next four years, global mobile phone camera shipments will reach a CAGR of 15.3%, and the camera module market will exceed 2500. 100 million yuan. Benefiting from the rapid increase in the penetration rate of multi-camera cameras such as three-camera and four-camera cameras, although global smartphone shipments have grown steadily, optical lenses will also usher in rapid growth.
As the key basic components of electronic terminals, optical lenses are mainly used in consumer electronics, automobiles, security monitoring, industrial control and other fields. With the advent of the new imaging era, the importance of the lens as the "eye of equipment" in consumer electronics has become increasingly significant and has become an important medium for human-computer interaction. In recent years, the global demand for consumer electronic products has been strong, and the rapid development of VR/AR and the upgrading of smart phones have put forward direct requirements for the upgrade of lenses, and the industry has huge room for development.
Through continuous development, the optical lens industry has formed a complete industrial chain. Optical lenses are at the core of the optical component industry chain. The industry chain includes upstream optical lens raw materials (optical glass, optical plastics). The midstream optical components are mainly the manufacturing of optical components such as spherical lenses, aspheric lenses and filters, as well as glass lenses, The manufacturing of plastic lenses, glass-plastic hybrid lenses, etc., while the downstream is the application of optical lenses, including smart phones, tablets, sports cameras, smart driving, smart homes, security monitoring, etc., and VR/AR.
The production of optical lenses mainly uses raw materials such as nitrate materials, plastic mechanical parts, metal mechanical parts, and electromechanical parts. The impact of raw materials provided by the upstream industry on optical lens products is mainly reflected in price factors and quality factors. For example, the price increase of electronic components and other materials will lead to an increase in the ex-factory price of electro-optical lenses; if the quality of optical raw materials does not meet the industry standards, the quality of optical lenses will be difficult to guarantee or lens shipments. reduce.
Optical lens is one of the most valuable optical components. The camera module consists of several lenses, VCM voice coil motor, spacer ring, image sensor, FPC, etc. Among them, image sensors, lenses, and voice coil motors are high barriers. In terms of value chain composition, image sensors account for approximately 52% of camera modules, followed by modules (20%) and optical lenses (19%).
Introduction to the optical lens industry chain The upstream core components of optical modules mainly include optical lenses, CIS chips, filters, motors, etc.
Sunny Optical Technology, the largest optical lens company in China, had revenue of about 5 billion in its optical components business in 2018 (accounting for 20% of total revenue), and the revenue of other mainstream optical lens companies was between 1 billion and 3 billion. The gross profit margin of upstream component companies in the optical field is generally higher at 20%-40%, and the net profit margin is at the level of 10%-20%.
midstream camera module. In 2018, OFILM, the largest optical lens module company in China, had revenue of 24.4 billion in camera modules, and Sunny Optical's revenue in 2018 was around 20 billion (80% of total revenue). The gross profit margin of the optical module business is generally 10%-15%, and the net profit margin is between 5%-10%.
The technical barriers of optical lenses are very high, which are mainly reflected in three aspects: patents, production processes, and molds. There are very few companies that produce high-level lenses on a real scale.
my country's optical lens started late, and the domestic market has been monopolized by foreign companies before 2008. At that time, the design and manufacturing level of developed countries was much higher than the domestic level, and the most outstanding ones were Germany and Japan. Excellent traditions and rich experience have created epoch-making optical giants such as Leica and Carl Zeiss in Germany; after World War II, Japan gave birth to Canon, Canon, and Fuji with high cost performance. And Olympus (Olympus) and other well-known companies.
After 2000, the domestic optical industry began to catch up with state support. At present, the global optical lens industry is shifting to China, and the original monopoly has been initially broken. A group of excellent domestic lens companies have begun to shine.
From the perspective of the market structure, the industry concentration is relatively high and there is a trend of further improvement. The survival method of the lens is either to accumulate enough technology, such as Largan, Yujingguang, Sunny Optical, and Guandong Chenmei; or to focus on niche markets for differentiated competition, such as United Optoelectronics and Lianchuang Electronics. Largan is the absolute overlord of the mobile phone lens industry. Sunny Optical, as the domestic lens leader, is gradually catching up. In addition, AAC Technologies has more advantages in the field of hybrid lenses and WLO, United Optoelectronics in security lenses, and Lianchuang Electronics in the field of sports camera lenses. Strong differentiated layout capabilities, and will gradually enter the field of consumer electronics lenses. In the field of automotive lenses, Sunny Optical is far ahead and has the largest market share in the world.
From the perspective of the global market structure, mainland manufacturers have a market share of less than 20%, and their proportion is still low. There is a lot of room for growth for mainland companies in the future. Take smartphone lenses as an example. The top five market shares in the industry exceed 60%. Largan is the largest supplier of optical lenses for mobile phones, followed by Sunny Optical in the mainland.
The leading companies in mainland China continue to extend upstream, carry out the layout of the whole industry chain, strengthen the industry trend, and enhance the competitiveness of leading companies! Leading companies further lay out the optical industry chain, continue to extend to the upstream of the industry chain, create vertical industrial integration in the optical field, and strengthen product competitiveness. Optical lens companies represented by Sunny Optical, Oufeiguang, and Lianchuang Electronics continued to break through patent barriers and made continuous breakthroughs in high-pixel mobile phone lenses and automotive lenses.
The mobile phone camera upgrade is carried out along two main lines: the pixel continues to upgrade, from the earliest 110,000 pixels to the current tens of millions of pixels (such as iphone 11); technology continues to innovate, along with multiple cameras, high pixels, large aperture, and telephoto , The evolution of miniaturized modules. In addition, technologies such as fingerprint recognition, 3D sensing, and periscope/slide structure are also evolving.
According to the latest report from Counterpoint, the penetration rate of triple-camera phones will reach 50% in 2021, which means that half of the phones in the market will be equipped with rear triple-cameras. According to data, Samsung currently has the highest penetration rate of mobile phones with three cameras and above, reaching 27%; Huawei ranks second with 23%. From the overall data, the current penetration rate of three-camera phones in the market is 15%, which will reach 35% by the end of 2020 and exceed 50% by 2021.
In 2018, Huawei released the P20 Pro Leica triple-camera smartphone (40M main camera + 20M black and white + 8M telephoto), with super night view function and 3x optical zoom, making the triple-camera the new benchmark for smartphones; Huawei released Mate30 in 2019 The Pro four-camera smartphone (40M movie lens (ultra wide-angle lens) + 40M super sensitive lens + 8M telephoto + TOF) can achieve super low-light shooting and super high-speed photography, with performance comparable to professional cameras. In addition, Samsung, Xiaomi, OPPO, Motorola and other mobile phone brand manufacturers have also launched four-camera phones.
3Dsensing is one of the trends in smartphone innovation, and it is currently accelerating its penetration into low-end mobile phones. There are currently three technologies for 3D sensing, namely binocular stereo imaging, structured light and ToF, and the more mature solutions are structured light and TOF. Among them, the structured light solution is the most mature and has been applied to industrial 3D vision on a large scale. TOF has become a more promising solution on the mobile side by virtue of its own advantages.
With its huge downstream market demand, China has become one of the most important markets for optical lenses in the world, and the process of localized replacement of lenses is accelerating. With the increasing demand of consumers for high-quality photos and videos, the evolution of camera modules is the only way for the development of smart phones. With the increase in penetration rates of dual and triple cameras, the market will start a new imaging revolution.