Today, Ming-Chi Kuo once again updated information about the Apple iPhone 12.
Key conclusions of this report:
1. The shipment proportion of GSEO’s low-end 1/2.6-inch 7P wide-angle lens for the iPhone 12 may be lower than market expectations, mainly due to shipping delays.
2. Even if GSEO can resolve quality issues, to maintain the supply ratio, we expect it would need to reduce the unit price of the 7P lens by about 30% to $1.5 (the market consensus is $2-2.2). This price reduction will affect performance in the second half of 2020 and significantly reduce gross margins in 2021.
3. The 7P lens’s revenue and EPS contribution to GSEO in the second half of 2020 may be lower than market expectations.
Ming-Chi Kuo pointed out in his report that the low-end 1/2.6-inch 7P wide-angle lens supplied by GSEO for the iPhone 12 has shown coating cracking quality issues during the PVT validation phase, which may lead to shipment delays. The latest industry survey indicates that this product is supplied by GSEO. In tests of the low-end 1/2.6-inch 7P wide-angle lens for the 5.4-inch iPhone 12 and 6.1-inch iPhone 12, coating cracking quality issues were found during the high-temperature and high-humidity (HTHH) validation stage.
The shipment plan for GSEO’s low-end 1/2.6-inch 7P wide-angle lens may be delayed. Since the camera modules (CCM) equipped with the low-end 7P wide-angle lens are mainly supplied by Sharp, the GSEO coating-cracking problem is mainly due to issues in Sharp’s CCM quality verification. It is worth noting that Largan’s low-end 1/2.6-inch 7P wide-angle lens does not have HTHH coating quality issues, which indicates that Largan still maintains a significant lead in the design and production of 7P lenses.
Ming-Chi Kuo previously reported that the iPhone 12 series will include four models in three sizes. All models will feature a 7P wide-angle lens, including a 5.4-inch OLED iPhone (dual rear cameras), a 6.1-inch OLED iPhone (dual rear cameras), a 6.1-inch OLED iPhone (triple rear cameras with ToF), and a 6.7-inch OLED iPhone (triple rear cameras with ToF).
At the same time, he emphasized that all wide-angle lenses on the new iPhone 12 will be upgraded from 6P to 7P. Among them, the wide-angle lenses on the 5.4-inch OLED iPhone, the 6.1-inch OLED iPhone, and the 6.1-inch OLED iPhone (triple rear cameras with ToF) use 1/2.6-inch 7P lenses; the wide-angle lens on the 6.7-inch OLED iPhone (triple rear cameras with ToF) supports sensor-shift technology and uses a 1/1.9-inch 7P lens.
