According to data from the General Administration of Customs of China, in the first quarter of this year, China's total integrated circuit imports decreased by 9.6% year-on-year, compared with a year-on-year increase of 33.6% in the same period a year ago, the total import volume fell sharply. However, China's total IC imports are rising. In the first three months of this year, entities located in China paid a total of $107.2 billion to purchase 140.3 billion integrated circuits, with imports up 14.6 percent year-on-year. This means that the average price of China's imported integrated circuits has risen by 26% year-on-year.
China is the world's largest importer of chips (the carrier of integrated circuits - editor's note), which are used in the production of electric vehicles, smartphones and consumer electronics, many of which are exported to global markets, including the source of imported semiconductor products land.
The decline in total integrated circuit imports in the first quarter of this year comes at a time when China is making a big push towards self-sufficiency in the technology sector. But as geopolitical competition intensifies, China's position in the global value chain, which adheres to the "dynamic zero" epidemic prevention policy, is under increasing pressure. On Tuesday, Apple's Taiwan-funded foundry company Pegatron said it had temporarily shut down two of its factories in Shanghai and Kunshan to comply with the government's epidemic prevention and control regulations.
Despite the recent outbreak of a series of Omicron mutants, China continues to make efforts to increase the production capacity of its domestic semiconductor industry. According to a report released this week by the International Semiconductor Industry Association, China remained the world's largest semiconductor manufacturing equipment market last year, with total sales of related equipment jumping 58 percent year-on-year to $29.6 billion.
In the first quarter of this year, China's total IC exports increased by 23.2% year-on-year, but total exports decreased by 4.6% to 70.2 billion pieces.