Interpretation of 10 Hot Trends in the Electronic Industry at the electronica China 2024!

Since 2024, the term "new quality productive force" has gone viral. As a keyword with more emphasis on technological innovation and development, "new quality productive force" is inseparable from the latest achievements of technological innovation. Especially after a trough lasting for several years, the global semiconductor industry has finally ushered in a special moment of a new round of upturn. Huge waves came head-on, and a window of opportunity came quietly. Under the trend, electronica China 2024 sorted out the annual development of the electronic industry and analyzed and predicted the upcoming hot trends in 2024, hoping to provide a valuable reference for industry professionals.

1. New Energy Vehicle

The year 2024 is regarded as a key year for intelligentization and 800V high voltage platforms, and the new energy vehicle industry has entered a white-hot competition period. In order to improve product attractiveness, automotive companies have poured money into research and development and launched various innovative technologies. Especially in terms of energy replenishment, it has become a consensus in the industry to solve the range anxiety of electric vehicles by using high-voltage fast charging technology. However, in order to popularize the full-range 800V architecture, it is first necessary to solve the compatibility problem of charging equipment under high-voltage platforms, including charging piles, batteries and motors. Additionally, there is also a need to upgrade and reconstruct the existing grid to support the power demand of the high-voltage platforms. With the continuous development of technology and the gradual improvement of infrastructure, it is expected that 2024 will be the first year for the popularization of the full-range 800V fast charging system and gradually become a standard configuration for medium and high-end electric vehicles. The 800V high voltage platforms will bring more innovations and changes to the new energy vehicle industry. In addition, the price of battery-grade lithium carbonate declined by more than 80% in 2023, and the downward trend is expected to continue in 2024, which may bring fiercer competition to the new energy vehicle market.

2. Storage

Overcapacity cannot withstand the influx of capital and new players. Especially under the background that new energy enterprises regard energy storage as the second growth curve, leading photovoltaics (PV) manufacturers and power battery enterprises have entered the energy storage field on a large scale, including some crossover players. According to Tianyancha, there are 72,000 new energy storage-related enterprises established in 2023, 1.8 times that of 2022. It is even reported that there are nearly 109,000 energy storage companies in China. At present, a new round of reshuffling is coming gradually, and enterprises with core technologies are more likely to hold firm in the market. Among all kinds of new energy storage technologies, electrochemical energy storage technology is relatively mature and has the most commercial applications. It is popular due to its greatly reduced cost and high energy density, but it also has problems such as insufficient safety, inadequate energy storage time and difficulty in recycling. At present, more new energy storage technologies have received attention. Diversified energy storage technologies have significant advantages in improving the flexibility of power systems, promoting renewable energy consumption and ensuring grid safety.

3.Intelligent Driving

Intelligent upgrading has set the tone for the development of new energy vehicles. Functional scenarios such as intelligent driving, intelligent cockpit and intelligent gateway continue to emerge, with more diversified requirements for computing power. For example, in 2023, intelligent cockpit chips with an advanced process were officially built in the car, and brand-new Mercedes-Benz E-Class Long Wheelbase, Jiyue 01 and Zeekr 001 FR were launched one after another. All of them are equipped with Qualcomm Snapdragon 8295, the industry's first 5nm intelligent cockpit chip. Autonomous driving chips with high computing power are also becoming popular. Both Zeekr 007 and Nio ES7 are equipped with NVIDIA DRIVE Orin, an autonomous driving integrated chip with strong computing power on the market at present. The computing power of a single chip reaches 254 TOPS (trillion operations per second). In addition, the continuous improvement of sensors, cameras, radars, control chips, communication technology and other technologies will also open up more space for the development and innovation of intelligent functions of automobiles.

4. Satellite Communication

In August 2023, Huawei launched the Mate 60 Pro smartphone with a satellite call function, which attracted wide attention to mobile phone satellite communication. Coincidentally, Apple also began to make relevant layouts and investments. The report asserted that traditional mobile phone subscribers will continue to shrink, while the number of users in the direct-to-phone satellite communications market will increase to about 130 million by 2032. In fact, as early as December 2022, the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) carried out research on the integration of satellites and 5G new radio (NR) technology, which is named "non-terrestrial network (NTN)". 3GPP's increased emphasis on satellite communications has had a far-reaching impact on the entire satellite communication industry, and various satellite communication operators have sought market opportunities for the integration of satellite communications with terrestrial cellular networks. It is predicted that the number of global NTN mobile connections will reach 175 million by 2030, and the annual market size of global satellite communication services will exceed USD 120 billion.

5. Robot

Commercial robot products are seeing explosive growth and being applied in a wide range of fields. The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2024 launched more than ten commercial robot products. Moreover, two artificial intelligence (AI) giants in the world, NVIDIA and OPEN AI announced their respective investment plans to develop humanoid robots in 2024. China's humanoid robot sector is also in full swing. Data show that as of December 2023, more than 30 Chinese humanoid robot products had been unveiled, some of which had experienced small-scale production. According to the Guiding Opinions on the Innovative Development of Humanoid Robots issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of the People's Republic of China on November 2, 2023, the Chinese government will accelerate the implementation of industrialization and put forward clear objectives and measures. It will also promote humanoid robots to a national strategic level. China's humanoid robot industry will usher in explosive growth in the next 2-3 years.

6. Wearable

Although "Wearable Technology in Healthcare" is not a new concept, and consumers are no longer sensitive to the innovation of wearable devices such as smart bracelets and watches, manufacturers are constantly exploring the next hot item in the wearable field. Recently, there has been an endless stream of new wearable products. Galaxy Ring, OnePlus Watch 2 [admin1] and the newly launched Vision Pro have made health functions a must-have. The convergence of generative AI is accelerating, bringing new vitality to the smart wearable market. China's wearable device market reached USD 3.8 billion in 2022, according to market research firm S&P Consulting Group. China's wearable device market is expected to exceed USD 10 billion by 2025.

7.Intelligent Building

In recent years, China's intelligent building industry has developed rapidly and the market size continues to expand. This is mainly due to the acceleration of urbanization, the continuous progress of information technology and the improvement of people's living standards. According to the Report on In-depth Analysis and Investment Potential Forecast of China's Intelligent Building Industry Market (2023-2028) released by Huajing Industrial Research Institute, the global intelligent building market size was USD 67.60 billion in 2021. The market is expected to grow from USD 80.62 billion in 2022 to USD 328.62 billion by 2029, with a CAGR of 22.2% over the forecast period 2022–2029. In recent years, the intelligent building engineering industry has been developing continuously. In 2023, the market size of China's intelligent building engineering industry reached RMB 653.8 billion, with a year-on-year increase of 5.69%. At present, the integration of new technologies such as big data, cloud computing and 5G in intelligent building puts forward new requirements for the development of intelligent building technology. How to push the "Intelligent Empowerment of Construction" to a new height is an important issue that all construction practitioners need to face and cope with in the future.

8.Edge Intelligence

2023 is undoubtedly a crucial year for generative AI models represented by ChatGPT and Stable Diffusion. Many industry behemoths, including Meta, Baidu, Microsoft, and Alibaba, rushed to launch their giant AI models. But the application of generative AI in vertical markets means that generative AI is never just on the cloud, but continues to go to the edge. Beyond the enterprise edge or data center edge, generative AI reasoning will play an increasingly important role in more end-side devices, such as PCs, mobile phones, and even embedded applications. For example, Intel is about to widely promote the AI PC concept, and MediaTek has specially added a generative AI acceleration engine for mobile application processor (AP) and system on Chip (SoC). In general, market participants from different locations are eager to take a slice of the pie in the new era of generative AI.

9. Smart Power Supply

As a basic industry serving various fields, the power supply industry has generally maintained steady growth and its application areas are continuously expanding, including but not limited to new energy vehicles, distributed PV, wind energy, LED lighting, IT communication, medical treatment, cloud computing, big data, smart city and other emerging industries. Nowadays, the related technologies of intelligent terminal power supply represented by smartphones, tablets, laptops and gaming handhelds have become a hot topic at present. Especially with the popularization of fast charging, wireless charging and other technologies, the power has continuously set new records from 5 W to 240 W. The traditional AC-DC and DC-DC circuit architectures have been driven by the popularity of fast charging over the years, showing a diversified situation. Additionally, the market demand for power supply has shown a rapid growth momentum. According to the China Power Supply Society, it is expected that the power supply industry market will maintain a steady growth trend in the next five years, and the scale of China's power supply market is expected to reach RMB 488.7 billion by 2025.

10. Third-generation Semiconductor

The development of third-generation semiconductors, led by materials like gallium nitride (GaN) and silicon carbide (SiC), plays a pivotal role in supporting the realization of China's "dual carbon" goals and a highly intelligent, digital and electrified society. From the initial 65 W to the current 18 W-300 W PD fast charging, the third-generation semiconductor materials have demonstrated their superior performance and advantages in volume and cost to the market with higher voltage resistance, temperature resistance and radiation resistance. Their reliability has gradually been recognized by the market. With the development of new energy vehicles, 5G communications, space exploration and other fields, the demand for third-generation semiconductor materials will continue to increase. For example, the application field of gallium nitride is rapidly expanding from mobile phone fast charging to data centers, communication power supplies and electric vehicles. The rapid development of new energy vehicles, PV and energy storage has paved the way for the application of third-generation semiconductors in high-power scenarios and also brought a new platform for them. According to Yole, the market size of SiC will reach USD 8.9 billion and that of GaN will reach USD 4.7 billion in 2028.

electronica China 2024 will be held at the Shanghai New International Expo Centre from July 8 to 10, 2024. The exhibition brings together high-quality electronic enterprises at home and abroad to build a professional display platform across the upstream and downstream of the industry from product design to application implementation. The display field closely follows the key points of the industry and integrates into new display fields according to real-time trending topics in the industry.