CIS market to reach $21.9 billion in 2022, Samsung further narrows gap with Sony

The latest report from market research firm Counterpoint predicts that driven by growing demand for smartphones, automobiles, industry and other applications, the global image sensor (CIS) market revenue will reach US$21.9 billion in 2022, a year-on-year increase of 7%. The mobile phone CIS market will contribute 71.4% of the revenue, and the top three CIS suppliers, Sony, Samsung and OmniVision, will account for a combined revenue share of 77%.

Image source: Counterpoint Research

Ethan Qi, deputy director of Counterpoint Research, said that with the continued recovery of global smartphone shipments and further upgrades in image sensors, especially in terms of resolution, CIS sales in the mobile phone field are expected to achieve mid-single-digit year-on-year growth. At the same time, with the intelligentization, networking and automation of automobiles, the application of visual and sensor cameras for ADAS and ADS functions will surge, thereby driving the increase in CIS penetration in new cars in the next few years. In addition, the security monitoring field is expected to maintain low single-digit growth.

Sony is expected to continue to lead the industry with a revenue share of 39.1% this year, followed by Samsung (24.9%) and OmniVision Technologies (12.9%).

As the largest supplier of imaging and ToF sensors, Sony has been actively expanding and diversifying its CIS customer base. Both products continue to shift to larger pixels, driven by the trend of mobile photography to professional DSLR quality, and the company's CIS revenue is expected to grow 3% year-on-year this year.

At the same time, thanks to its first-mover advantage in providing cost-competitive ultra-high-resolution CIS for mid-to-high-end smartphones and its active capacity expansion strategy, the gap between Samsung and Sony is expected to narrow further.

Thanks to its diversified product portfolio, breakthroughs in ultra-high-resolution sensors for smartphones, and growing demand in the automotive, surveillance and industrial sectors, OmniVision expects CIS revenue to grow significantly in 2022.

Although macroeconomic uncertainties and the impact of repeated epidemics still pose a threat to the global CIS industry, camera performance upgrades and application diversification in applications such as smartphones and automobiles are setting a solid long-term growth tone for CIS.