Good News on Listing | Frost & Sullivan Congratulates Gecko Microelectronics Co., Ltd. on Successfully Listing on the Sci-tech Innovation Board (688728)

Geke Microelectronics Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as 'Geke Micro') was successfully listed on August 18, 2021, with an issue of 249,888,718 shares, each priced at 14.38 yuan.

Frost & Sullivan is committed to providing the world with first-class overall solutions for photography, video, and display technologies through continuously innovative technology. As a CMOS image sensor Fabless design company with core competitiveness in CMOS image sensor process research and development and circuit design capabilities, GF Micro regards process research and development and product design innovation as the main driving force for value creation. Over the years, it has been dedicated to core technology research and development, striving to continuously improve product cost-effectiveness through continuous enhancement of technical strength. It possesses rich experience in manufacturing process innovation and has created a series of distinctive process routes. Currently, GF Micro has become a leading domestic and internationally renowned semiconductor and integrated circuit design enterprise, with products widely applied in consumer electronics and industrial fields including mobile phones, tablets, laptops, wearable devices, mobile payments, automotive electronics, etc. In the field of CMOS image sensors, GF Micro holds a market share of 29.7% globally in terms of shipments in 2020, ranking first in the industry; in the field of LCD driver chips, GF Micro accounted for 9.6% of China's market shipments in 2019, being the only mainland Chinese company among the top five suppliers in the Chinese market, breaking the monopoly of Taiwanese companies in this market. Frost & Sullivan has long been paying attention to the global and Chinese image sensor and display driver chip industries, publishing a large number of research reports, which are widely cited in the prospectuses of leading companies listed on the Sci-Tech Innovation Board in the industry, helping customers accelerate growth.

Image sensors are one of the most widely used and important sensors today. They primarily use an array of photosensitive units and auxiliary control circuits to obtain brightness and color signals from objects and scenes, and output digital image information through complex signal processing and image processing techniques. The photosensitive units in image sensors generally use photodiodes to convert optical signals into electrical signals. Photodiodes can generate current signals after being illuminated by light, and the intensity of the current is directly proportional to the intensity of the illumination. Image sensors are a core component of mobile phone camera modules.

With the rapid growth in smartphone shipments and the continuous increase in the number of mobile phone cameras, the global image sensor market continues to expand. From 2012 to 2019, global image sensor shipments grew rapidly from 2.9 billion units in 2012 to 6.91 billion units in 2019, with an annual compound growth rate of 13.2%. Looking ahead, as mainstream mobile phone brands continue to launch smartphones with triple, quad, or even five cameras, the market demand for image sensors will maintain a faster growth rate. Global image sensor shipments are expected to reach 9.59 billion units by 2024, with an annual compound growth rate of 7.5% between 2020 and 2024.

Similar to the global trend of increasing image sensor shipments, global image sensor sales have maintained rapid growth in the past few years, rising from $9.96 billion in 2012 to $19.87 billion in 2019, with an annual compound growth rate of 10.4% during this period. With the continuous development of image sensor manufacturing processes and technologies, production costs have decreased, resulting in a slow decline in the market price of image sensors. Global image sensor sales are expected to reach $26.71 billion in 2024, with an annual compound growth rate of 6.4% from 2020 to 2024.

CMOS image sensors and CCDs are currently two mainstream image sensors. CCDs are integrated on single crystal silicon material, with pixel signals moving row by row and column by column, and being amplified at the edge exit positions. CMOS image sensors are integrated on metal-oxide-semiconductor material, with each pixel point equipped with a signal amplifier, allowing pixel signals to be directly scanned and exported. CMOS image sensors have advantages such as low cost, simple design, small size, and low power consumption. With the maturation and progress of technology, CCDs have gradually been replaced by CMOS image sensors.

Thanks to the rapid development of in-vehicle applications, machine vision, face recognition, and security monitoring, as well as the widespread popularization of multi-camera phones, the market size of CMOS image sensors has been continuously expanding. From 2012 to 2019, global shipments of CMOS image sensors increased rapidly from 2.19 billion units to 6.36 billion units, with an annual compound growth rate of 16.5% during this period; it is expected that the market will continue to grow at an annual compound rate of 8.3% from 2020 to 2024.

Similar to the trend of shipment growth, global CMOS image sensor sales rapidly increased from $5.52 billion in 2012 to $16.54 billion in 2019, with an annual compound growth rate of 17.0% during this period. It is expected that global CMOS image sensor sales will continue to grow at an annual compound rate of 8.0% between 2020 and 2024.

Currently, mobile phones are the main application area for CMOS image sensors. Other major downstream applications include other electronic consumer terminals such as tablets and laptops, as well as fields like automotive electronics, security monitoring equipment, and medical imaging. In 2019, global sales of CMOS image sensors for smartphones and feature phones accounted for 73.0% of the global market share, while sales for consumer terminals such as tablets and laptops accounted for 8.7% of the global market share. By 2024, emerging field applications will drive continuous growth in CMOS image sensors. However, with the continuous development of multi-camera trends in smartphones, mobile phone CMOS image sensors will still maintain their key market position.

The display panel mainly refers to the touch display panels used for electronic devices such as televisions, desktop computers, laptops, and mobile phones. With technological progress, information display technology has been developing increasingly, and the interaction between various information system terminal devices and users needs to be achieved through information display. Display technology has evolved from the initial cathode ray tube (CRT) display technology to plasma display (PDP), liquid crystal display (LCD), and organic light-emitting diode (OLED). Various touch displays are being applied to electronic devices, and the display panel industry continues to develop.

The driver chip is located between the main circuit and the control circuit, serving as an intermediate circuit that amplifies the signals from the control circuit (i.e., amplifying the control signal so that it can drive the power transistor). Driver chips can be mainly categorized according to application fields into: motor/drive chips, display driver chips, lighting driver chips, voice coil motor driver chips, audio power amplifier chips, etc.

Display driver chips generally refer to chips that have the function of driving the display of a screen. They typically use industry-standard universal serial or parallel interfaces to receive commands and data, and generate signals with appropriate voltage, current, timing, and demultiplexing to display the required text or images on the screen. Display driver chips are commonly used in various electronic devices such as smartphones, computers, tablets, wearable devices, as well as in various display-equipped devices like cars, industrial machinery, and medical devices. Display driver chips are usually semiconductor integrated circuits that provide a microprocessor, microcontroller, ASIC, or general peripheral interface between interface functions and a specific type of display device, such as LCD, LED, OLED, electronic paper, CRT, vacuum fluorescent display, or digital tube/halogen tube.

With the continuous increase in market demand, the global display panel market size has been growing year by year since 2012. Global display panel production increased from about 139 million square meters in 2012 to about 233 million square meters in 2019, with an annual compound growth rate of about 7.7%. The global display panel market is mainly divided into LCD display panel market and OLED display panel market. Among them, TFT-LCD has a relatively large market demand and proportion due to its mature technology and wide application in large-screen display areas such as televisions and laptops in the downstream field. The technology of OLED is currently mainly applied in some emerging electronic products such as VR devices and wearable devices. With the mature development of display technology and the growth of downstream demand, it is expected that global display panel production will increase from about 244 million square meters in 2020 to about 2.74 billion square meters in 2024, with an annual compound growth rate of about 2.9%.

With the continuous growth of the global display panel market scale, the market size of global display driver chips has also been increasing year by year. In 2012, there were 8.844 billion display driver chips, which reached 15.597 billion in 2019, with an annual compound growth rate of about 8.4%. With the continuous improvement of display technology and the increase in the scale of electronic devices, the market size of display driver chips is expected to maintain a stable upward trend. It is estimated that by 2020, the number will reach 16.658 billion and by 2024, it will reach 21.834 billion, with an annual compound growth rate of 7.0%.

The market scale of display driver chips in China has grown rapidly in recent years. In 2012, shipments reached 904 million units, accounting for about 10.2% of the global market. With the continuous development of the display driver chip market in China, its market share in the global market has gradually increased. In 2019, China's share reached about 29.4%, amounting to 458.4 million units, with a compound annual growth rate of 26.1% from 2012 to 2019. It is expected that in the next few years, the display driver chip market in China will continue to grow, increasing from 529.9 million units in 2020 to 804.8 million units in 2024, with its share also rising from 31.8% to 36.9%.

The Chinese display driver chip market is mainly dominated by LCD display driver chips, accounting for the majority of market share. The number steadily increased from 884 million units in 2012 to 4.374 billion units in 2019, with an annual compound growth rate of 25.7%. It is expected that the LCD display driver chip market will continue to maintain a stable growth rate and reach 7.39 billion units by 2024. In 2019, LCD display driver chips accounted for 95.4% of market shipments; while OLED display driver chip shipments only accounted for 4.6% of the market share in 2019, but their growth rate was relatively fast, increasing rapidly from 2012's 0.2 billion units to 2.1 billion units in 2019, with an annual compound growth rate of 39.9% during that period. Their market share also rapidly increased from 2.2% to 4.6% in 2019. It is expected that with the continuous expansion of the OLED panel market in the future, the OLED display driver chip market will further grow, with shipments reaching 6.58 billion units in 2024, accounting for 8.2% of the Chinese display driver chip market.

Frost & Sullivan has rich research experience in the sectors of communications, semiconductors, and IT solutions. It has assisted well-known enterprises in successfully listing on capital markets. Recent successful listings include Nomad (8645.HK), Can.NASDAQ's Genian Yunzhi (CAN.NASDAQ), 3601.HK's Masterlu (3601.HK), 1675.HK's AsiaInfo Technology (1675.HK), 0788.HK's China Tower (0788.HK), 8606.HK's Cangguan Holdings (8606.HK), 8043.HK's Atlinks (8043.HK), 2708.HK's Aibot Technology (2708.HK), 8410.HK's Anling International (8410.HK), 8062.HK's Junmeng International (8062.HK), and others.

Since the listing of the first batch of companies on the Sci-tech Innovation Board in July 2019, Frost & Sullivan reports have also been widely cited in the prospectuses of leading Sci-tech Innovation Board listed companies in the industry, including: Juchen Semiconductor (688123.SH), Huaxi Biotechnology (688363.SH), Junshi Biosciences (688180.SH), Zhejiang Genomics (688266.SH), Bio-Thera (688177.SH), and Shenzhou Cells (688520.SH). They are considered to be the most powerful, professional, and influential industry research institutions in the sector. We hope to work with enterprises to understand industry trends, seize development opportunities, jointly promote innovation and upgrading of major industries in China, and create a better future.