Although the mainland-invested PCB factory has maintained growth in terms of revenue, it has not proportionally driven the increase in net profit. Compared with 2020, the number of manufacturers showing a decline in 2021 is greater than those in terms of growth; however, a significant change as net profit used to be accompanied by a year-on-year increase in revenue in the past is no longer perceived. As viewed, mainland-invested manufacturers are also confronted with the reality that they have to reduce profits and accept orders to fill up the capacity for they are sitting under the pressure of huge depreciation expenses after extreme expansion of production capacity.
　　As we conduct a comprehensive survey of the market for the past three years, the product mix of PCB in mainland China remains dominated by rigid boards, and the proportion of output value in 2021 has increased to 75.5% under the effect of continuous investments for factory expansion. However, the thinning of terminal products has enlarged the market size for HDI, which has also led to the gradual realization of results by mainland investments in HDI in the past two years. As being estimated, HDI should have accounted for about 12~16% of the overall PCB in 2021, an increase of 1.6% to 2.5% as compared with that of 2019.
　　Though soft board, second in the ranking, has also maintained growth, its growth rate is hardly as high as that of hardboard, and the production capacity is too much concentrated in a few manufacturers. As such, its proportion had dropped by 20.9% in 2021. On the other hand, though the proportion of substrate is rather low, many mainland-invested factories are witnessed to be most active in the way of development, so the proportion has gradually increased in the past three years. If the process of introducing mass production in 2021 is smooth, it is likely there will be a significant chance of a proportion increase in 2022.
　　In 2021, PCB from the mainland-invested factory has continued to place its focus mostly on communications and consumer electronics. Although the output value of these two types of products persists to sustain growth, their drive is simply far from the strong recovery of computer products and automobiles as triggered by the epidemic. As such, the proportions of their output value have dropped, especially in terms of communication with a mobile phone that serves as the primary application, for it has dropped by more than 1%, while the changes of proportion in other applications fell by 0.3%, with relatively small fluctuation.
　　For the complete download of the analysis and criticism: Asian PCB Industry Competitiveness Research of Asia in 2021- Chinese Capital Is Catching Up Both in Quantity and Quality"