An Analysis on the Crisis of “Chips shortage” in Automobile Industry ——Based on the Double Influence of COVID-19 and Trade Friction

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic and various infection control measures have made a great impact on the regular operation of global integrated circuit companies,which caused the“Chips shortage” Phenomenon in the automotive industry. Based on data collected from official channels, industry associations, SIA and enterprises, this paper performed an empirical analysis on the structure of global integrated circuit market, and studied supply and demand in the market. The results of the analyses showed that:1) the pandemic control measures and the re-allocation of market resources are the short-term factors unbalancing the supply and demand for automotive chips. 2) the global shortage of Chips of the automotive industry may continue and the risk of breaking the industrial chain is increasing. Because it is a long industry chain which relies on efficient cross-border collaboration, but it is lack of international prevention and control cooperation mechanism altogether. The current situation presents both challenges and opportunities to China. This paper proposes that China should take efforts in strengthening international cooperation; and improve the core competitiveness of China’s chip industry by the top-level designing and encouraging domestic enterprises to invest in research and development,and to improve their technical performance.