Owing to the biggest improvement coming to iPhone 15 standard and two iPhone 16 Pro models – the adoption of a stacked design High-end CIS, the popular TF International Securities tech analyst, Ming-Chi Kuo has predicted that Sony’s capacity will remain tight until 2025.
It is no longer news that the upcoming iPhone 15 standard models and two 2024 iPhone 16 Pro models will be adopting a stacked-designed CIS from Will Semi. Previously, the last two analyses of Ming-Chi Kuo had already named Will Semi as one of the biggest beneficiaries of the iPhone 15 and iPhone 16 upgrades.
Given the development, the popular TF International Securities tech analyst affirms that Will Semi, being beneficial will lead the smartphone sector to bottom out and resume growth, and rapidly improve the product mix. He added that the firm will continue to obtain more orders for high-end CIS from Chinese smartphone brands thereby replacing Sony until 2025.
Will Semi’s High-End CIS Market Journey
In the first half of the year, Will Semi’s CIS shipments declined year over year, due to inventory corrections. But due to inventory restocking and market share gains, Ming-Chi Kuo said the firm will bottom out ahead of smartphones and resume growth from 2H23.
According to him, Will Semi CIS shipments will improve significantly in 2023, growing by about 8% YoY, compared to a decline of about 40% YoY in 2022, which is better than smartphones and most components.
Moreover, Ming-Chi Kuo further predicted that as Sony’s high-end CIS capacity remains tight, Will Semi’s CIS (48 MP+) market share will continue to grow rapidly.
In his words: “It is expected that 2H23 high-end CIS shipments will increase by about 50% HoH to 36 million units, and shipments in 3Q23 and 4Q23 will be about 16 million and 20 million units, respectively. Benefiting from the significant increase in orders in 2H23, Will Semi’s high-end CIS shipments in 2023 will grow by about 35% YoY.”
According to the analyst, among Will Semi’s high-end CIS that will replace many orders from Sony are the main contributions from OV50A, OV50E, OV50H, and OV64B.
Consequently, he maintains that due to Sony’s high-end CIS’s limited capacity, Will Semi’s overall CIS and high-end CIS shipments are anticipated to increase by roughly 15-20% YoY and 40–50% YoY, respectively, in 2024. Therefore, its sales and profit are anticipated to increase significantly from 2H23 due to the sustained improvement in total shipments and product mix.
