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According to the latest investigation by global market intelligence firm TrendForce, strong demand for AI chips has tightened the supply of high-end MLCCs and squeezed the availability of consumer-grade MLCCs. This dynamic has prompted some distributors to stockpile inventory preemptively, causing suppliers to respond with price adjustments. Recent price negotiations between ODMs and suppliers indicate that the average drop in overall MLCC prices has narrowed to its smallest margin in nearly three years, suggesting that the MLCC price cycle has reached a critical turning point and is poised for an upward turn.
A closer look at high-end MLCC demand reveals the primary driver of this supply-demand imbalance. While a single NVIDIA GB200 board requires approximately 6,500 MLCCs, the next-generation Rubin architecture—featuring double the thermal design power (TDP) and significantly more complex power management—will push per-board usage to roughly 12,000 units. Simultaneously, North American cloud service providers (CSPs) such as Microsoft, AWS, Google, and Meta are steadily increasing orders for in-house ASIC chips and CoWoS advanced packaging, ensuring sustained long-term demand for high-end MLCCs. Consequently, major Japanese and South Korean suppliers have shifted their production capacity toward components for AI applications. This, in turn, is steadily constraining the supply flexibility of consumer MLCCs quarter by quarter.
In response to shrinking production capacity and strict inventory controls for consumer MLCCs, agents based in Taiwan and Mainland China have begun preemptively stocking X5R standard products (capacitance values between 1000pF and 10uF). This has created an asymmetric demand scenario characterized by declining actual orders from ODMs alongside surging orders from channels. In April 2026, Taiyo Yuden took the lead by raising prices for low-capacitance consumer and automotive MLCCs by 6% to 13%. This triggered a chain reaction across the channel market and prompted SEMCO, another major supplier, to actively consider raising its pricing for agents. SEMCO’s potential move aims to curb widespread channel hoarding, eliminate the risk of double booking, and optimize the profit structure of consumer-grade components to ensure that the production capacity for high-value-added products is allocated efficiently.
TrendForce’s investigations also reveal that by early May, some ODMs had already completed their 3Q26 price negotiations with MLCC suppliers. Driven by the momentum of price hikes across the supply chain, the average decline in overall MLCC prices narrowed to less than 0.5%, the smallest in nearly three years. This highlights a significant recovery in sellers’ pricing power. As the majority of ODMs begin a new round of price negotiations in late May, a key focal point will be whether current market conditions can trigger an across-the-board rebound in MLCC prices.
TrendForce notes that the current tight supply of high-end MLCCs—resulting from brisk orders for AI servers and ASIC packaging and testing—is unlikely to ease in the short term. Meanwhile, a solid price floor for consumer MLCCs is gradually forming, supported by Taiyo Yuden’s recent price hikes and SEMCO’s evaluation of similar measures. Moving forward, the pricing strategies of Murata and SEMCO, the actual volume of ASIC orders in the second half of the year, and the outcomes of the new round of price negotiations with ODMs will collectively determine the strength and duration of this impending price rebound.
