Far away oil! The import of chips exceeds 2.5 trillion yuan, siphoning global electronics manufacturing, and domestic chips are also "popping red"!
Domestic chip
On the evening of December 7, the General Administration of Customs of China announced import and export data for the first 11 months of 2021. Statistics show that my country’s total import and export value was RMB 35.39 trillion in the first 11 months of this year, an increase of 22% year-on-year and an increase of 24% year-on-year.
It is worth noting that China's total imports of integrated circuits reached 2.52 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 14.8%, accounting for 15.9% of the country's total imports, and the number of imports reached 582.22 billion, an increase of 19.3%. From the data point of view, both the amount and quantity of imports have exceeded the whole year of 2020.
China is still the world's largest chip market
The world has been affected by the epidemic in the past two years, which has had a serious impact on most industries, but for China's semiconductor market, it has been a rare high boom in recent years. Looking back at the relevant data in recent years, the value of chip imports in 2019 has dropped to US$305.5 billion, but in 2020, the value of imports has risen against the trend, reaching US$350 billion. In November 2021, the value of chip imports has reached US$389.1 billion.

Drawing by Electronic Fans Network (Unit: 100 million U.S. dollars)
At the same time, related agencies predict that global chip sales will reach 544 billion U.S. dollars in 2021, a year-on-year increase of 24%. Even if calculated by China’s imports in the first 11 months, China currently accounts for 71.5% of global chip sales. It is expected that the proportion of global chip imports will increase further. China is still the world’s largest chip consumer market.
On the one hand, the increase in imports year by year is mainly due to the fact that the country has been affected by the epidemic in recent years and the international trade environment, which has caused a wave of domestic substitution in the country. In 2020, more than 20,000 semiconductor-related companies will be added. Reached 32%. Many new semiconductor-related companies have increased their demand for chips, which has also led to an increase in the number of chip imports.

Of course, the country also has great tax incentives for the import of integrated circuits, which is also an important reason for the continuous increase in the amount of chip imports. In March of this year, the Ministry of Finance, the General Administration of Customs, and the State Administration of Taxation issued a notice stating that logic circuits and memory manufacturers with integrated circuit line widths less than 65nm (inclusive), and characteristic process integrated circuits with line widths less than 0.25nm (inclusive) Manufacturers that import self-use productive raw materials, consumables, special construction materials for clean rooms, supporting systems and integrated circuit production equipment (including imported equipment and domestic equipment) parts and accessories that cannot be produced or whose performance cannot meet the needs in the country are exempt from import tariffs. .
Interestingly, the United States has previously included a number of Chinese companies in the "Entity List" and prohibited the sale of integrated circuit products containing 10% of American-related technologies to these companies. However, from the data point of view, even if the United States is working hard to pursue and intercept Unable to stop the continuous growth of China's chip imports.
What needs to be admitted is that although China is vigorously supporting the domestic chip industry, the development speed of the domestic integrated circuit industry is obviously not able to keep up with the demand of domestic related industries.
Of course, if you want to continue to promote the development of the domestic integrated circuit industry, you must build a big market. Relying on trade protection cannot promote the rapid entry of domestic related companies, allowing domestic chip companies to compete with top companies in today's special environment. On the contrary, it can promote the long-term development of the enterprise. At least, many domestic semiconductor manufacturers have entered the domestic supply chain.
Chip exports are rising year by year, and the design industry has become the largest category
Judging from the recent data released by the National Bureau of Statistics, the IC market grew by 40.2% from January to October this year. The rapid growth has also led to a rapid increase in domestic chip exports. According to data from the General Administration of Customs, China’s chip exports reached US$116.6 billion in 2020, a year-on-year increase of 14.57%. Chip exports in the first 11 months of 2021 were US$138.1 billion. A year-on-year increase of 34%, which is already higher than the full-year export value of 2020.

In terms of the number of chip exports, a total of 25.61 billion were exported in the first 11 months of 2021, a year-on-year increase of 23%. It is worth noting that the increase in export volume is greater than the increase in export volume, which obviously means that the unit price of chip exports is higher.
The substantial increase in export value indicates that domestic chips have gradually been recognized by global companies on the one hand, and on the other hand, it also proves the rapid development of the domestic semiconductor industry from the side.
According to relevant data, from January to September 2021, my country's integrated circuit design market increased by 18.1% year-on-year, with sales reaching 311.1 billion yuan; wafer manufacturing increased by 21.5% year-on-year, with sales of 189.81 billion yuan; packaging and testing industry increased by 8.1% year-on-year %, sales of 184.95 billion yuan. Among them, the design industry has surpassed the packaging and testing industry in total scale for the first time since 2016, becoming the first project in the integrated circuit industry.
On the one hand, the rapid development of the integrated circuit design industry has benefited from the strong support of relevant domestic policies. At present, the country has subsidized more than 50 billion US dollars in the relevant semiconductor industry; at the same time, subsidies have further attracted powerful companies to enter the semiconductor field. For these new start-ups or cross-border companies, design is the preferred direction.
While the country is vigorously developing integrated circuits, another important data is the chip's import and export trade deficit. From the data in recent years, the chip trade deficit in 2019 was US$204 billion, and in 2020 it was US$233.4 billion, a year-on-year increase. 14.4%. The trade deficit in 2021 (January-November) is US$251 billion, and the annual trade deficit is expected to be US$273.8 billion, which is expected to increase by 17.3% year-on-year.
Judging from this data, although the amount of Chinese chip exports is rising, at the same time, the trade deficit has not narrowed, but has been expanding. It proves that the external dependence of China's integrated circuit industry is still at a high level. At the same time, data shows that the current localization rate of semiconductor materials and equipment is less than 20% on average.
On the other hand, due to the impact of the epidemic in the past two years, the capacity utilization rate of factories in many foreign regions has been insufficient, and the resumption of work and production in China is good. Therefore, some orders are transferred to China due to foreign supply chain problems.
The unit price of domestic chips has risen steadily, moving towards high-end
For the data released by the General Administration of Customs this time, we know the import and export volume of integrated circuits, as well as the number of imports and exports, then we can further calculate the unit price of each chip. From January to November 2021, the unit price of domestic chip imports is 0.6534 US dollars, while the unit price of exported chips is 0.4662 US dollars.
From the perspective of chip unit price, imported chips are generally 50% more expensive than exported chips. It can be seen that most imported chip products are basically mid-to-high-end products, while export chips are basically mid-to-low-end products.
But the good news is that last year, my country’s chip exports were 259.8 billion, with a total export value of 116.6 billion U.S. dollars, and an average chip price of 0.4488 U.S. dollars each. Comparing 2021 and 2020, the unit price of chips rose by 3.9% year-on-year, which means that Chinese chips are gradually moving towards high-end products.
On the other hand, from the perspective of the price of imported chips, the number of imported chips in 2020 is 543.5 billion, so the average price of imported chips can be calculated to be 0.6440 US dollars each. In comparison, the growth rate of imported chip prices is 1.5%. Judging from this data, the price of domestic chips is moving closer to imported chips.
Of course, the development of the integrated circuit industry requires continuous and large amounts of financial support. If you want to achieve the national goal of achieving more than 70% chip self-sufficiency by 2025, we still need to continue to work hard.
There is still a certain lack of capital expenditure in the semiconductor industry in China. In 2018, China’s semiconductor capital expenditure was only 11 billion U.S. dollars, while China’s semiconductor capital expenditure accounted for 10% in 2019 and 28% in the United States. From 2017 to 2020, China’s semiconductor capital expenditure is 44.7 billion U.S. dollars, which is only half of Samsung’s.
It is indeed gratifying to continue to move towards the high-end, but behind this, continuous support for the domestic chip industry is needed. China has already invested heavily in talents, equipment and other fields. I believe that it will continue to invest in semiconductor manufacturing and corresponding capital expenditures. promote.