Contract electronics maker Pegatron has announced plans to purchase land and a building in Taoyuan, northern Taiwan, for a total of NT$755 million (US$24.6 million).
Taiwan-based Flexible Printed Circuit (FPC) manufacturer Complex Micro Interconnection Co. expects that FPC shipment momentum in third-quarter 2023 will gradually recover as customer inventory levels decrease. The company is also stepping up the construction of a second production base in Thailand in response to global supply chain shift and the bottleneck in the surface mount (SMT) back-end process.
Taiwan-based automotive PCB maker Dynamic Electronics has accelerated the construction of its new plant in Thailand, which is scheduled to open in the fourth quarter of 2024.
VinFast founder Pham Nhat Vuong said the electric vehicle maker could be profitable after 2025 if operations are "smooth" and break even by the end of 2024.
Sweden-based battery company Northvolt decided to move forward with a plan to construct a factory in Germany as long as government financial support is available. In addition, China-based Eve Energy secured land in Malaysia last week to expand battery production in the country.
Gold Circuit Electronics (GCE), which specializes in high-layer count (HLC) PCBs for servers and PCs, has disclosed plans to set up a new plant in Thailand.
PCB production used to be heavily concentrated in Kunshan, China and Taiwan. However, recent changes in the global economy and politics, as well as growing geopolitical conflicts, have led both upstream material suppliers and downstream rigid and flexible PCB manufacturers to plan or enact strategies for new production bases in third countries.
The rising labor cost in China and the changing international politics have given birth to a new value chain stretching from Shenzhen and Dongguan in southern China to northern Vietnam. Samsung has already established two major handset production bases in northern Vietnam. Vietnam, with double-digit growth in electronic device exports annually in recent years, promises to be a key player in the supply chain.
According to data collected by DIGITIMES, all 949 publicly traded electronics firms in Taiwan generated sales totaling NT$953 billion in 2022. Manufacturers of electronic devices, such as handsets and notebooks, accounted for about NT$500 billion, of which about NT$400 billion came from the top-6 makers – Foxconn, Pegatron, Quanta, Wistron, Compal, and Inventec. These six firms alone purchase as much as US$300 billion worth of components each year, and if they stopped production at the same time, the impact would be immeasurable. The US bid to rebuild meaningful control of the supply chain has definitely sent shockwaves across the ecosystems supporting these top-6 makers.
BYD Co. plans to produce electric vehicles in Vietnam and expects support from the country's government to do so, the Southeast Asian nation said following a May 5 meeting between Deputy Premier Tran Hong Ha and the automaker's chairman and founder, Wang Chuanfu.
Taiwan-based network device makers Arcadyan Technology, Sercomm, and Accton Technology are all keen on their capacity expansions in Southeast Asia despite the existing economic downturn, according to sources from the upstream supply chain.
The EV supply chain in Southeast Asia has grown mature with Thailand and Indonesia becoming the major players in the ecosystem. With Thailand's subsidy policies helping boost local EV sales, many Chinese automakers including Great Wall Motor (GWM), SAIC Motor, and BYD are also planning to establish production lines in Thailand for making BEVs and should turn the country into a key EV market before 2030, according to DIGITIMES Research's study on Southeast Asia's EV industry.
Thailand is making an effort to build its EV supply chain. According to a government official, the country is in talks with China-based CATL and other battery companies about setting up local factories to accelerate its pace of automotive electrification.
Taiwan-based PCB manufacturers are facing challenges as they push forward with relocating production to Southeast Asia, particularly Thailand, such as limited land, water, and electrical supplies, according to industry sources.
