Murata expands MLCC production! Profit fell 34% last quarter
Due to the increase in medium and long-term demand for multilayer ceramic capacitors (MLCC), Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd., the world's leading MLCC manufacturer, will build a new plant in the Philippines to increase MLCC production.On August 1, Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd. announced that its manufacturing subsidiary "Philippine Manufacturing Co. of Murata, Inc." in the Philippines has started construction of a new plant and increased production of MLCC in August 2023. The demand related to automobile and 6G communication technology, the new plant is expected to be completed by the end of September 2025, with a total investment of about 11.2 billion yen (only including the cost of plant construction), with a total construction area of about 78,000 square meters. The specific details of the production scale Not disclosed.
In addition to the above-mentioned new plant in the Philippines, the new MLCC plant built by Murata at the Iwami plant of its production subsidiary "Izumo Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd. (Izumo City, Shimane Prefecture)" was completed in April 2023. The new MLCC plant in Thailand The factory will also be completed in February 2023.
Murata is the world's leading MLCC manufacturer, holding about 40% of the market share, and plans to increase MLCC production at a rate of 10% per year.
Although the demand for electric vehicles is rising, the demand for consumer electronics is declining, which also affects Murata's performance.
According to the last quarter (April-June 2023) financial report released by Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd.: Although benefited from the depreciation of the yen, the demand for MLCC used in a wide range of applications such as smartphones, PCs, and base stations has decreased, coupled with product prices. The decline dragged down sales in the previous quarter to 367.6 billion yen, a decrease of 16%. Net profit was 50 billion yen, down 34% year-on-year.
Murata pointed out that the overall order value received in the last quarter was 361 billion yen, a decrease of 15.4% compared with the same period last year, of which capacitor (mainly MLCC) orders decreased by 16.8% to 164.3 billion yen. Also due to the decrease in orders, the BB value (order-to-bill ratio) in the last quarter continued to fall below the boundary "1" indicating whether the order receiving situation is active, which was the fifth consecutive quarter when it fell below 1.
In terms of sectors, the revenue of Murata's components sector (including capacitors and inductors/EMI filters) in the last quarter decreased by 16.3% to 208.3 billion yen compared with the same period last year. Among them, capacitor revenue fell 16.2% to 169.5 billion yen, and inductor/EMI filter revenue fell 17.1% to 38.9 billion yen.
In the last quarter, Murata's component/module division (including high-frequency/communication modules, energy/power components and functional components) revenue decreased by 15.0% to 156.8 billion yen. Among them, the revenue of high-frequency/communication modules (including high-frequency modules, surface wave filters, connectors, resin multilayer substrates "MetroCirc", etc.) dropped by 18.9% to 87.9 billion yen, and energy/power components (including lithium-ion Batteries, power modules) revenue fell 6.4% to 48 billion yen, functional components (including sensors, etc.) revenue fell 15.7% to 20.9 billion yen.
Murata pointed out that although the market environment has changed, after evaluating based on the current exchange rate situation, the financial forecast for this year (April 2023-March 2024) will remain unchanged, and the consolidated revenue will decrease by 2.8% to 1.64 trillion yen, consolidated profit will drop by 26.2% to 220 billion yen, and consolidated net profit will drop by 32.8% to 164 billion yen.
According to the survey conducted by QUICK in advance, the market originally expected that Murata's profit and net profit this year would be 247.7 billion yen and 186.7 billion yen. Murata's forecast was weaker than market expectations.
Tsuneo Murata, president of Murata Manufacturing, said, "From the second half of July to September, demand for smartphones will slowly improve," and the full-year performance forecast remains unchanged. "
