Connectors are the basic components that constitute system connections and have a wide range of downstream applications.
Connectors are the basic components necessary to form a complete system connection. They are electronic components for the transmission and exchange of current or optical signals between electronic system devices. As a node, they serve as components for devices, components, equipment, etc. independently or together with cables. Transmit current or optical signals between subsystems without causing changes in signal distortion and energy loss between systems.
According to different transmission media, connectors can be divided into four categories, namely electrical connectors, microwave connectors, optical connectors and fluid connectors. Different connectors have different functions and application fields. For example, electrical connectors are used for electrical signal links between devices, components, and equipment, and are widely used in communications, aerospace, computers, automobiles, and industry; microwave radio frequency connectors are used for the connection of microwave transmission circuits and belong to high-frequency electrical connections. connectors, mainly used in communications, military and other fields; optical connectors are reusable passive components used to connect two optical fibers or optical cables to form a continuous optical path. They are widely used in transmission trunk lines, regional optical communication networks, long-distance telecommunications, optical Detection, and other types of optical transmission network systems.
Different categories of connectors perform different functions and therefore have differences in design and manufacturing requirements. Generally speaking, electrical connectors must meet the requirements of good contact and reliable operation. Among them, high-power electric energy transmission also requires low contact resistance, high current carrying, low temperature rise, and high electromagnetic compatibility performance; transmitting high-speed data signals requires good circuit impedance continuity, small crosstalk, low delay, and high signal integrity; In addition to the reliability requirements of contact, microwave RF connectors have strict requirements for impedance design and compensation, and need to meet performance requirements such as insertion loss, return loss, phase and third-order intermodulation; fiber optic connectors have strict requirements for component alignment accuracy. Therefore, the requirements for the processing accuracy of the contact parts are high, high cleanliness and accurate positioning.
The upstream of the connector industry chain is raw material production, and the downstream covers multiple application fields. From the perspective of the industrial chain, the upstream of connectors is the production of raw materials, including metal materials, plastic materials, electroplating materials, and structural materials, as well as equipment suppliers such as mechanical processing equipment, electroplating processing equipment, testing equipment, and assembly equipment. The midstream is connectors. The design and manufacturing of electronic products are downstream for electronic product brands and the end consumers they directly face, covering multiple application fields such as automobiles, communications, computers, and industrial transportation.
Connector industry chain
According to different application fields, the focus of different connector designs is different. Connectors in different application fields need to meet the three basic properties of electrical performance, mechanical performance and environmental performance, and because of their different application scenarios, there are differences in functional features and technical levels.
automotive connector
The automotive field is the largest application scenario for connectors in the world. Due to the safety requirements of the automotive field, the performance of automotive connectors, especially new energy vehicle connectors, focuses on electrical properties such as high voltage, high current and anti-interference, and they need to have long mechanical life. , vibration and shock resistance and other good mechanical properties in a dynamic working environment for a long time. At present, automotive connectors are mainly electrical connectors, but with the development of intelligent and connected cars, automotive radio frequency connectors have also begun to be used.
Communication field
The communications field is the second largest application scenario for connectors in the world. Connector products need to meet electrical indicators such as characteristic impedance, insertion loss, and voltage standing wave ratio, and they need to achieve functional requirements such as low signal loss, low standing wave ratio, and low microwave leakage. Communication technology changes rapidly. Therefore, connector products in this field are mostly customized products. Electrical connectors, radio frequency connectors, and optical connectors are used in the communication field at the same time. On the communication data center or server side, the demand for high-speed connectors accounts for a relatively high proportion; on the wireless base station side, due to the emergence of 5G MASSIVE MIMO technology, the demand for radio frequency connectors accounts for a relatively high proportion. The rapid iteration of technology in the communications field requires connector manufacturers in this field to have product pre-research capabilities in order to maintain the matching between connector technology and application scenarios.
Industrial grade transportation
Industrial and transportation connectors include multiple application scenarios such as wind energy, solar energy, industrial robots, mechanical equipment, elevators, rail transit, etc. Connector products are mostly electrical connector products with long life cycles and slow product iterations. In addition to the aforementioned fields, the application fields of connector products also include military, aerospace and other special fields. In order to be qualified to perform tasks in weapons and equipment or in space, military or aerospace connector suppliers need to undergo a strict review and approval process by the competent authorities, and there are strong national geographical restrictions. In addition, aerospace connectors must undergo rigorous outgassing and residual magnetization elimination testing to ensure their normal operation in aerospace applications, and must have the performance to withstand severe environmental conditions.
The market size of the connector industry is growing steadily, and there is broad room for domestic substitution.
Connectors have a wide range of downstream applications. As one of the important electronic component industries, connectors are now widely used in consumer electronics, industry, transportation and other fields such as automobiles, communications, and computers. According to Bipshop&Associates data, automotive connectors accounted for 23.7% and 22.6% of the connector market size in 2019-2020, ranking first and second respectively. They are one of the most important application scenarios in the connector field.
Global connector downstream application distribution in 2020
In recent years, the global connector market has shown a steady growth trend as a whole. The scale growth and technological changes in the terminal market will promote the continued expansion of the connector market in the future. From 2011 to 2020, the global connector market size increased from US$48.923 billion to US$62.727 billion, with a compound growth rate of 2.80%. Driven by the rapid development of China's economy, the downstream application industries of connectors such as communications, automobiles, and consumer electronics have developed rapidly in China, allowing my country's connector market to maintain rapid growth. The domestic connector market has grown from US$11.296 billion in 2011 to US$20.184 billion in 2020, with a compound growth rate of 6.66%, much higher than the global average; the domestic connector market's share of the global share has also increased from 23.09% to 32.18%, surpassing Europe and North America to become the world's largest connector market .
The connector industry is a fully competitive industry with the characteristics of market globalization and specialization of labor, and the competition pattern is relatively stable. The world's major connector manufacturers have chosen different development directions and business areas based on differences in their own technical reserves and customer resources. Among global connector manufacturers, overseas companies include global leaders such as Tyco, Amphenol, and Molex. They occupy leading positions in high-end connector markets such as communications, aerospace, and military industries by virtue of their technology and scale advantages. At the same time, they have integrated a large number of standardized manufacturing Businesses are outsourced to foundry companies, with relatively high profit levels; Japanese connector companies such as Yazaki and Avionics use their advantages in precision manufacturing to develop connector products in medical equipment, instrumentation, automobile manufacturing and other fields. occupies a higher share; Taiwan has gradually formed leading companies such as Hon Hai Precision and Zhengwei Precision through OEM production. They have established cost advantages through large-scale and standardized production and have strong process control and cost control capabilities. In consumer electronics It occupies a major share of the connector market; mainland companies include Luxshare Precision, AVIC Optoelectronics, Aerospace Electrical Appliances, Electrical Connection Technology and Yihua Co., Ltd. Although they started late compared with overseas leaders, they have developed rapidly in recent years and have already occupy a place in the global connector market.
From the perspective of industry concentration, overseas companies such as Tyco and Amphenol have great advantages in product quality and industrial scale due to their sufficient R&D funds and years of technology accumulation, and are in a leading position in high-performance professional connectors. , and leads the industry direction by continuously launching high-end products. At present, on a global scale, the phenomenon of strong players in the connector market is becoming increasingly obvious, and industry shares are gradually concentrating on leading companies. Since 1980, the market share of global head connector manufacturers has increased year by year, from 38% in 1980 to 61% in 2020.
The market share of the top ten connector manufacturers continues to increase
The connector industry has significant scale effects, high technical barriers in production technology, and high industry barriers in terms of customers and markets. According to data from Bishop & Associates, global connector companies in 2019 were dominated by European, American and Japanese companies. Only Luxshare in mainland China entered the top ten. The top ten connector manufacturers in the world had a combined market share of 60.8%. The market concentration is high, and in recent years The whole keeps rising.
In terms of automotive connectors, automotive connector companies are dominated by American and Japanese manufacturers. Domestic companies started late and have insufficient technical reserves, so their competitiveness is relatively weak. The top ten companies in the world have a combined market share of 86.5%, which is higher than the overall connector market share. market. In recent years, my country's connector manufacturing companies in the communications and automotive fields have achieved rapid development in terms of technology and scale. Domestic companies have taken the opportunity of technology iteration in the communications field and the rise of new domestic new energy vehicle manufacturing forces to technically break the monopoly of foreign connector companies in these two fields, and have successfully entered the world's major communications equipment integrators and well-known vehicle manufacturers. supply chain system. With the rapid iteration of technology and the growth of demand in downstream industries, the communications and automotive fields have become the two largest application markets for international and domestic connector products.
Compared with overseas giants, my country's connector industry started late and has a low starting point for development. However, in recent years, with the rapid development of my country's electronic information industry, especially mobile communications, automobiles, consumer electronics and other industries, there has been a rapid demand for high-end precision electronic products. Growth has promoted the rapid development of the upstream connector industry, and a number of companies with outstanding performance in technology research and development, product quality, brand awareness, etc. have emerged, gradually breaking the technology monopoly of leading companies in the international connector industry. Taking automobile connectors as an example, the electrification, intelligence and networking of automobiles have provided broad development space for my country's connector industry. Domestic connector companies are closer to downstream OEMs and have the ability to respond quickly, in terms of production costs, It has certain market competitiveness in terms of quick response and customer service, and its long-term development space is promising.
The volume and price of automotive connectors are rising, and the rise of the domestic new energy vehicle industry provides development soil for the industry.
1. The electrification of automobiles increases the demand for high-voltage connectors, and the intelligentization of automobiles increases the demand for high-speed connectors.
Automotive connectors are widely used in power systems, body systems, information control systems, safety systems, vehicle-mounted equipment, etc., involving oil lines, valves, emission devices, power distribution systems, instrument panels, anti-lock braking systems, and GPS navigation. Instruments, displays and other equipment, including circular connectors, RF connectors, FCP connectors, I/O connectors, etc. According to data from Bishop & Associates, the global automotive connector market size was US$15.21 billion in 2019, with a compound growth rate of 5.33% from 2014 to 2019, which is higher than the growth rate of the global connector market size; it is expected that by 2025, the automotive connector market size is expected to reach US$19.452 billion.
Application of automotive connectors in vehicle systems and charging systems
According to different transmission media, automotive connectors can be divided into high-speed connectors and electrical connectors. Among them, high-speed connectors are used to transmit and exchange data signals, and electrical connectors are used to transmit and exchange current. For different application scenarios in automobiles, high-speed connectors can be roughly divided into two categories: radio frequency connectors and Ethernet connectors. Among them, radio frequency connectors It also includes Fakra, Mini-Fakra, HSD and other categories; according to different working voltages, electrical connectors can be further divided into low-voltage connectors and high-voltage connectors. The working voltage of low-voltage connectors is generally 14V, and is mostly used in the BMS of traditional fuel vehicles. , air conditioning systems and car lights, etc. High-voltage connectors are mostly used in batteries, PDU (high-voltage power distribution box), OBC (on-board charger), DC/DC, air conditioning, PTC heating, direct/AC charging interfaces, etc. of new energy vehicles.
The electrification of vehicles increases the demand for high-voltage connectors. New energy vehicles use the principle of electric drive motors. The core components are the three-electric system of battery, motor, and electronic control. In order to achieve greater torque and torsion, high-power driving energy needs to be provided, and corresponding high voltage and high current are required, which increases Demand for high voltage connectors. The value of low-voltage connectors used in traditional fuel vehicle bicycles is about 1,000 yuan, while the material cost, shielding, flame retardant requirements and other performance indicators of high-voltage connectors are higher than those of traditional low-voltage connectors. The value of connectors used in new energy vehicle bicycles is much higher than that of low-voltage connectors. Connector.
In recent years, new energy vehicles have made significant progress in terms of power performance, charging speed and cruising range, and their market competitiveness has been significantly enhanced. Driven by both policies and markets, they have become an important direction for the development of the automotive industry. Although my country's automobile sales have entered the stock market since 2017, the sales of new energy vehicles represented by electric vehicles continue to grow, and the penetration rate continues to increase. The China Automobile Association predicts that my country's new energy vehicle sales are expected to exceed 9 million units in 2023, and the penetration rate will further increase. With the decline in production costs due to economies of scale, the improvement in cruising range brought about by advances in battery technology, and the gradual improvement of infrastructure such as charging piles, domestic new energy vehicles are expected to shift from policy-oriented to demand-oriented, and the new energy vehicles led by Tesla in January 2023 The sharp price reduction of energy vehicles is also expected to accelerate the further promotion of vehicle electrification, which will benefit both the volume and price of automotive high-voltage connectors.
Monthly sales and year-on-year growth rate of new energy vehicles in my country since 2018
Automobile intelligence requires the addition of various sensors such as high-definition cameras, millimeter-wave radar, lidar, and ultrasonic radar, as well as antenna modules such as 5G, V2XS, GPS, and Beidou, and ECUs such as ADAS control modules, radar control modules, and high-speed network management modules. The amount of data transmission between vehicles has increased significantly compared with traditional fuel vehicles, requiring high-speed, reliable, and low-latency data transmission, which has greatly increased the demand for high-speed connectors. As the penetration rate of autonomous driving above L2 level in my country continues to increase, the scale of the domestic high-speed connector market is expected to further expand.
Autonomous driving means that a car has the ability to perceive the road environment, route decision-making and planning, and vehicle control execution without the driver's operation through artificial intelligence, visual computing, radar and other technologies. According to relevant documents, automobile automation is divided into 6 levels, namely L0-L5, among which L0-L2 are assisted driving. The system can assist the driver to perform dynamic driving tasks. L3 and above are called automatic driving, and the system can perform all dynamic driving tasks. For driving tasks, L3 needs to take over as needed.
In order to create differentiated competition, terminal car companies have increased their intelligent configurations in recent years and launched related models equipped with intelligent driving functions, including adaptive cruise, automatic parking, active lane keeping, automatic lane changing and other functions. As of 2022Q1, IDC data shows that the penetration rate of domestic L2 autonomous passenger vehicles has reached 23.2%, a significant increase of 15.7 percentage points year-on-year, and L2 has gradually become standard. Since 2022, models with pre-embedded L3 hardware such as Ideal, Xpeng, and NIO have been intensively released and launched, and lidar has begun to enter the first year of popularization. As leading car companies intensively launch models with pre-embedded L3 hardware, it is expected that other terminal car companies will follow suit, and the L3 penetration rate is expected to continue to increase.
Ideal L9 sensing element
The realization of autonomous driving requires the entire process of environmental perception, decision-making planning and control execution, from which the perception layer, decision-making layer and execution layer are derived. Based on the data provided by the decision-making layer, the perception layer completes information fusion, environment perception, and path planning through high-precision autonomous driving algorithms and on-board computing platforms, thereby outputting decision-making control plans; while the execution layer replaces humans based on decisions made by the system. The process of controlling steering, driving, and braking of vehicles puts forward higher requirements on the accuracy, reliability, and low latency of vehicle data perception and transmission, which increases the demand for high-speed and high-frequency connectors. According to the forecast of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, domestic car sales in 2023 will be approximately 27.6 million units, a year-on-year increase of approximately 3%. If the proportion of autonomous vehicles equipped with L2 level or above is 28%, and the average value of high-speed connectors per vehicle is 1,200 yuan, then in 2023 The domestic high-frequency and high-speed connector market is expected to reach 9.27 billion yuan in 2020.
In June 2022, Shenzhen promulgated the "Shenzhen Special Economic Zone Intelligent Connected Vehicle Management Regulations", which is the first domestic regulation on the management of intelligent connected vehicles. It clarifies that intelligent connected vehicles can be driven on the road after being registered by relevant departments; road testing has been expanded. and demonstration application scope, among which administrative areas with relatively complete vehicle-road collaboration infrastructure were selected to implement full-area open road testing; in addition, usage management specifications and traffic accident liability divisions were clarified. In addition, the "Autonomous Vehicle Transportation Safety Service Guidelines (Trial)" issued by the Ministry of Transportation in August stipulates the service scope of autonomous vehicle transportation and lists application scenarios that encourage the use of autonomous vehicles. The recent policies from national authorities to local governments that have been intensively implemented in the industry have further highlighted the importance attached to the autonomous driving industry. With the continuous improvement of relevant laws and regulations, the development of the industry is expected to further accelerate.
2. Automotive connectors are mid-to-high-end products, and terminal car manufacturers provide development soil for domestic connector manufacturers.
Due to the safety requirements in the automotive field, the performance of automotive connectors, especially new energy vehicle connectors, focuses on high voltage, high current and anti-interference properties. Therefore, it has high technical and process barriers, and the production threshold is higher than that of general connections. Utensil category. Therefore, the current market concentration of the global automotive connector industry is relatively high. It is still controlled by leading overseas manufacturers, and the industry concentration is higher than the overall level of the connector industry. Leading overseas manufacturers started early in the field of automotive connectors and have advantages in production experience, technology accumulation, and production scale. They dominate the formulation of industry standards and build a deep industry moat. At present, Overseas Tyco is the global leader in automotive connectors, with a market share of 39.1% in 2021. Companies such as Yazaki, Aptiv, Rosenberg, Sumitomo and JST have leading market shares; while domestic manufacturers currently have a late start. Low market share and market share. Taking high-speed connectors as an example, the domestic market is dominated by Rosenberg and Tyco Electronics, but domestic manufacturers represented by Electrical Connection Technology and Yihua Co., Ltd. are also accelerating the promotion of domestic substitution.
With the development of China's manufacturing industry, domestic new energy vehicle manufacturing forces have rapidly emerged and become the world's largest new energy vehicle production base. Among the top 15 new energy vehicle manufacturers in terms of domestic retail sales in 2022, 12 will be domestic auto brands, occupying a dominant position. Although local automotive connector manufacturers are not as good as overseas leading companies in terms of start-up time, development starting point and production scale, they have advantages in response speed, cost control and rapid delivery, and can produce and deliver large quantities of products in the short term. The rise of downstream terminal new energy vehicle brands has led to rapid development.
Competitive advantages of local automotive connector manufacturers
