At The Beginning Of 2026, The Semiconductor Industry Will Be Rising.

At the beginning of 2026, the semiconductor industry will be "rising". On January 27, China Micro Semiconductor announced a 15%-50% price increase for core products such as MCU and Nor Flash, becoming the first domestic chip manufacturer to publicly adjust prices before the Spring Festival; Guoke Micro launched a price increase earlier in January, with a maximum increase of 80% for the combined KGD product. The price increase has spread from the chip design side to storage, packaging and testing, materials and other links, the US stock storage leader has risen simultaneously, and the differentiation of the A-share sector has intensified.

Dual drive: the resonance between cost forcing and the imbalance between supply and demand

This price increase is not an isolated event, but an inevitable result of the dual effects of cost pressure and mismatch between supply and demand. From the cost side, the cost of the whole industry chain has risen to form a "transmission chain": the cost of frame and packaging and testing has soared across the board, and the production line of the three major domestic packaging and testing factories Changdian Technology, Huatian Technology, and Tongfu Microelectronics is running at full capacity during the Spring Festival, and the shortage of frame materials is expected to continue until the third quarter, directly pushing up the manufacturing costs of chip manufacturers; Coupled with the increase in the prices of raw materials such as gold and copper by 15%-30% in 2025, the rise in industrial electricity prices in Taiwan and South Korea by more than 16%, and the increase in logistics costs caused by the diversion of the Red Sea route, the profit margin of enterprises will continue to be under pressure. Even if the price of China Micro Semiconductor rises sharply, the market expects its gross profit margin to only rebound by 3-4 percentage points, and has not yet returned to the level of 2021, which shows the drama of cost pressure.

The imbalance between supply and demand constitutes the core logic of price increases, of which the "siphon effect" of AI demand is particularly critical. The global AI infrastructure construction is accelerating, the demand for high-bandwidth storage (HBM) in AI servers has skyrocketed, and the DRAM usage of a single AI server is 8 times that of general-purpose servers. Reflected in the price, Samsung's LPDDR memory quotation for iPhone rose by more than 80% month-on-month in the first quarter, SK hynix was close to 100%, and the spot price of DDR5 16Gb soared by 178% in two months. At the same time, the downstream demand side has shown a structural recovery, the demand in the field of automotive electronics and small household appliances has rebounded, and the medium and micro semiconductor automotive-grade MCUs have entered the supply chain of BYD and NIO, and its 30% market share of small home appliance MCUs is bound to giants such as Midea and Gree, and the demand for terminal replenishment further exacerbates the supply and demand gap.

Full-chain transmission: chain reaction from design to terminal

The wave of price increases has broken through a single link, showing a trend of spreading throughout the industry chain. On the design side, in addition to China Micro Semiconductor and Guoke Micro, manufacturers such as Smart Micro, Sheng Silicon Micro, and National Technology all plan to start price adjustments after the holiday, with an increase of about 10%-20%, and the average selling price of domestic MCUs in the second quarter of 2026 is expected to break through the historical peak in 2018. TrendForce predicts that DRAM contract prices will increase by 55%-60% month-on-month in 2026, NAND flash memory will rise by 33%-38%, and server DRAM will increase by more than 60%. On the packaging and testing and material side, manufacturers such as Changdian Technology and Tongfu Microelectronics have announced price increases of at least 10%, international material manufacturers such as Nitto Bo and Resonac have successively raised the prices of glass fiber cloth and CCL products, and domestic companies such as Shengyi Technology are expected to further increase prices by 30% in 2026.

The end market has felt the direct impact. Home appliance ODM manufacturers held supply guarantee meetings overnight due to the price increase of China Micro Semiconductor, and locked orders for the second quarter in advance; The automotive electronics field has been more significantly affected, with an increase of up to 50% in medium and micro semiconductor automotive-grade MCUs, increasing the BOM cost per vehicle by about 200 yuan. Behind this chain reaction is the V-shaped reversal of the inventory cycle in the semiconductor industry - from a high of more than 120 days of inventory in 2023 to a healthy line of 65 days in early 2026, and the downstream shifts from cutting orders to waiting and seeing, further amplifying the elasticity of price increases.

Pattern differentiation: industry "ice and fire" under the tide of price increases

It is worth noting that the price increase did not bring about a general rise in the whole industry, but intensified the differentiation of the sector, showing a pattern of "the strong are always strong and the weak are under pressure". The A-share semiconductor sector staged extreme differentiation at the beginning of the year: 10 core leaders disclosed their 2025 results, 8 collectively thundered, net profit fell by up to 176%, and some companies lost more than 500 million yuan; while China Micro Company, Jingfang Technology and other enterprises broke through against the trend, with net profit increasing by up to 52%. The core of differentiation lies in track selection and technical barriers: China Micro Company focuses on AI chip etching machines, binds advanced process needs, and benefits from the 26.3% growth rate of the global AI semiconductor market; Jingfang Technology is deeply involved in sensor packaging, which is in line with the trend of edge AI-driven multi-sensor fusion.

On the other hand, most of the companies with thunderous performance are in the predicament of the traditional track: either affected by the downturn of the industry cycle, downstream destocking leads to a decline in revenue, and superimposed rigid R&D expenditures form an inversion; or fall into price wars in the fields of Internet of Things chips and ordinary silicon carbide substrates, and gross profit margin is under significant pressure; or due to the mismatch between strategic layout and market demand, it suffers from inventory price declines and investment losses. The essence of this differentiation is the embodiment of the structural market situation of the industry - the supply of AI-driven high-end tracks is insufficient, the overcapacity of traditional fields is overcapacity, and the wave of price increases has further accelerated the survival of the fittest in the industry.

Trend outlook: the balance between price increase cycle and long-term logic

In the short term, the price increase is expected to continue until the second quarter of 2026. The peak of AI server pulling goods and the demand for mobile phones and home appliances will support the continued rise in prices; The new production capacity of Samsung, Micron and other companies is expected to be opened in the third quarter, and the price increase may slow down at that time. In the medium term, we need to pay attention to two key variables: first, the magnitude and scope of price increases followed up by manufacturers after the holiday, and whether they can form continuous price support; The second is the resilience of downstream demand, if the price increase leads to the reduction of orders by terminal enterprises, the prosperity of the industry may fall, and the sector is likely to enter a shock stage.

In the long run, this price increase will become an important opportunity for industry restructuring. In the context of global supply chain restructuring, domestic substitution is still the core logic, and in the price increase cycle, domestic chip manufacturers with independent technology can accelerate to seize market share, especially in the fields of MCU and storage, domestic enterprises are gradually narrowing the gap with international giants. At the same time, the reshaping of the semiconductor industry by AI technology continues to deepen, and high-end tracks such as HBM, advanced packaging, and semiconductor equipment will become the core engine of future growth, and its demand certainty far exceeds that of traditional fields.

It is necessary to be vigilant that the wave of price increases also has hidden risks: cost transmission may trigger weak terminal consumption, policy supervision is concerned about price fluctuations, and the impact of technology iteration on the demand for existing products may affect the trend of the industry. For enterprises, seizing the high-end track opportunities brought by AI, optimizing supply chain costs, and consolidating customer stickiness are the keys to crossing the cycle; For the market, it is necessary to penetrate the price increase sentiment, focus on enterprises with technical barriers and growth certainty, and avoid the risks of traditional surplus tracks.