The size of the smartphone camera module market will grow at 5 percent to 5.02 billion units in 2022, according to TrendForce research.
The primary basis for consumer purchases is the price-performance ratio of whole devices. The cost of high-standard solutions such as the five-camera design and main cameras sporting hundreds of millions of pixels will be passed on to the manufacturer with little improvement in sales performance.
The three-camera module is forecast to account for more than 40 percent of total shipments this year. Some smartphone models will adopt a four-camera design to differentiate their specifications, while the number of products with dual-cameras or less will fall, with entry-level models being the primary candidates.
By combining a high-pixel main camera with two low-pixel function cameras, a mobile phone can retain a three-camera design while taking into account hardware costs. This is the primary reason for the development of low-end and mid-range products towards a three-camera or even four-camera design in addition to the increased adoption of low-pixel function cameras including 2-megapixel depth cameras and macro cameras.
Growth momentum in mobile phone camera module shipments will come from additional numbers of low-pixel cameras prompted by the three-camera design. Pixel specifications have not climbed higher and mainstream cameras linger at 50 million pixels, causing a slight stagnation in demand.
Mobile phone brands are curtailing competition in the hardware specifications of mobile phone camera modules but focused on photographic and video performance as promotional features of their mobile phones and will emphasize dynamic photography, night photography and other scenarios to highlight product advantages.
This can be achieved by strengthening the optical performance of the camera module itself and through algorithms and software, increasing the enthusiasm of mobile phone brands to invest in self-developed chips.
In addition to Apple and Samsung, which have long used their own chipsets, other mobile phone brands have tried to launch self-developed chips to enhance image processing performance such as Xiaomi’s Surging C1 and Oppo’s MariSilicon X and Vivo’s V1+.
