Asia Pacific Smartphone Camera Lens Market - Growth, Trends, COVID-19 Impact, and Forecasts (2022 - 2027)

Asia Pacific Smartphone Camera Lens Market - Growth, Trends, COVID-19 Impact, and Forecasts (2022 - 2027)

The Asia Pacific Smartphone Camera Lens Market is expected to reach a CAGR of 6.00% during the forecast period 2021-2026. Smartphone market maturation is creating a high competition environment in which cameras play a central role. With the increasing emphasis on photography and videography features, while making buying decisions, the demand for smartphone camera lenses is expected to grow in the coming years among android and other smartphones. Lenses are evolving technologically to accommodate the needs of video capture, sensors are emerging in new sizes and designs, and Wi-Fi connectivity is being enabled in cameras.

Key Highlights

• According to GSMA, the smartphone adoption rate is expected to reach 81% during the forecast period, an increase of 26.5% as compared to 64% during 2019. The growth is moderate but the trend towards replacing the existing models with the ones equipped with the latest technological incorporation is expected to provide growth opportunities to the smartphone camera lens vendors.
• Looking at some of the last year's best smartphones including the Google Pixel 4, Huawei Mate 30 Pro, and the Apple iPhone 11, it is evident that the trend of mobile photography will continue and prove as a point of differentiation for the vendors in the region and therefore intensify the price competition.
• However, due to the recent shut down of businesses across China owing to the influence of Coronavirus is expected to influence the smartphone camera lens market negatively, as prices of hardware components may increase over time due to no production and exhaustion of stocks maintained by the manufacturers in few months. In the short run the market will suffer due to lower demand and supply chain disruptions but in the long run, the market is expected to witness growth owing to technological advancements in CMOS and others.
• For instance, in Q1 2020, AAG Technologies holdings Ltd. revenue and gross profit declined by 5.1% and 27.1% YoY, to RMB 3.56 billion and RMB 823 million, respectively, whereas gross margin narrowed by 7.0 percentage points YoY to 23.1%. this resulted in the net profit decreased by 87.8% YoY to RMB 53 million majorly due to seasonality factors and augmented by the outbreak impact of COVID-19, which significantly affected the operation and production utilization of the Group. Such trends are expected to be noticed more for other vendors for the current year.

Key Market TrendsEvolution of Multiple Camera Approaches and Introduction of Advanced Camera Technologies​

• The cameras in smartphones are improving at a rapid pace and to a point where they might eventually negate the need for stand-alone digital cameras. The increasing demand for a slimmer device has created has caused designers to make use of the larger width and height of phones by adding additional cameras to their designs. Having multiple camera lenses has made an array of new features possible thus increasing the demand for camera lenses.
• The smartphone camera lens market is directly dependent on smartphone sales, as they are the primary applications for the product. Rapidly evolving technology such as image stabilization, faster processors for digital cameras, and a significant increase in storage devices capacity and speed has provided the essential push for the market to evolve.​
• Optics remains one of the key direction for smartphone innovations. Upgrade trends for tele-zoom, night mode, ultra-wide-angle, and high image resolution features have set more demanding standards for camera stability, height thickness, and optical resolution.
• For instance, 40MP Huawei P20 Pro was a differentiator in 2018, whereas in 2019, 48MP and 64MP sensors became normal. Xiaomi Mi Note 10, the first 108MP smartphone, was launched in Indian Market in March 2020. Quad-CFA, quad-Bayer, or pixel-binning camera sensors is the underlying technology that has made it possible.
• Besides, the optical lens industry is better-placed relative to other component sub-sectors in light of the structural growth of the number of cameras in smartphones and significant entry barriers created by high technological capabilities and capital intensity. Taiwan's Largan Precision Co., Ltd. and China's Sunny Optical Technology (Group) Company Limited together had the majority of the global optical lens market share by 2019 by volume.

China is Expected to Witness Significant Growth

• Among all the regions, China is witnessing a Spurr in demand for smartphones. Huawei, the Chinese tech giant, is reportedly stated to ship approximately 200 million units in 2020 alone. On the other hand, the various other brands like Oppo, Vivo, and Xiaomi are expected to ship a huge number of smartphones. Due to this, a single Chinese brand is expected to order anywhere between 400 to 500 million optical lenses in 2020.
• As a result, Owing to their capabilities, companies like Largan Precision, Sunny Optical Technology, Ofilm Tech, Q Technology, and Truly Opto-Electronics, to name a few, are expected to be sharing most of these lens orders by Chinese smartphone vendors in 2020.
• To leverage the competitive advantage on price, most players are shifting their operations to China, Taiwan, and Vietnam. The regional market is between players mainly delivering sub-5Mp resolution cameras for the computing and low-end mobile fronts and players producing above-5Mp for high-end rear mobile cameras. ​
• Most smartphone manufacturers in the region are also driving innovation in the market studied—for instance, Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd, in 2019, launched its smartphone P Smart Pro, with a pop-up selfie camera module. Another company, Vivo Communication Technology Co. Ltd, a Chinese technology company, in Q1, 2020, launched its smartphone Vivo S1 Pro, with a rear camera module in India.​

Competitive Landscape

The Asia Pacific smartphone camera lens market is highly competitive. It appears to be mildly concentrated, moving towards the fragmented stage, owing to the presence of many large and small players in the market. Moving forward, the strategy of technical innovation to develop different types of lenses, with new attractive features, is adopted by the major players.

• In December 2019, AAC Technologies Holdings Inc. signed a strategic cooperation framework agreement with Shenzhen Pingshan District Government during the 2019 Shenzhen Global Investment Promotion Conference and planned to invest as much as 7 billion yuan on R&D and manufacturing of precision camera modules in Pingshan. The agreement is also expected to benefit smartphone camera lenses offered by the company.

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