Nakajima Noriju, president of Japan's smartphone component company, said that the growth of the global smartphone market is slowing down, and the future will shift the focus of operations from high-end mobile phones to the low-end mobile phone market, hoping to use this strategy to break through the saturated high-end mobile phone market.
This multilayer ceramic capacitor (MLCC) leader is the leading businessmanThe smartphone market is expected to grow by 5% in the new fiscal year ending March 2025, driven by demand for mid-range and low-end handsets in India, Africa and Southeast Asia
"China's exports to areas with growing populations are really increasing," Nakajima said. "In the case of the Chinese market, excess inventories are normalizing.
Murata estimates that global smartphone makers will produce 1.1 billion phones this year, with only single-digit growth likely in the future.
"I can't predict that annual mobile phone sales will return to the pre-pandemic peak of 1.4 billion units in the future," he said. This won't happen anytime soon. ”
According to market research firm IDC**, smartphone shipments are expected to increase by 3 percent next year8%, and then continued to grow slowly for three consecutive years. The company will also not be able to return to pre-pandemic levels until 2027.
Nakajima said that the slow progress of infrastructure construction in emerging economies has added to the uncertainty of market recovery. "We were expecting infrastructure in emerging markets to move fast, but we didn't see that kind of aggressive spending," he said. ”
With this in mind, Murata is looking to expand into the low-cost component market. Nakajima said that for many years, Murata has focused on high-margin, high-end capacitors used in high-end models such as Apple and Samsung, and now it is committed to reducing the production cost of lower-priced models and is expected to expand in growth markets.
"Before, we didn't really want to make the most low-cost components, and we only made a minimum effort to maintain our market position," he says. ”
In order to survive in the long run, Murata must work harder in the low-cost field.