The demand for expensive silver has led to price increases even for the "invisible" components of electronics

Review of price increases for passive electronic components

Since the beginning of last year there has been a general rise in the cost of memory and storage, but now market attention is shifting to other critically important components – passive parts such as filters, inductors, and capacitors.

1. What will change at Murata – Effective date: April 1.

- New prices apply to four groups:

1. Surface-mount ferrite filters
2. Multilayer ferrite power inductors
3. Multilayer RF inductors
4. Multilayer shunt reactors

- Reason for the increase: rising silver costs used in these components.

Murata is the world’s largest producer of passive parts, and its decision is already affecting supply chains worldwide.

2. Other players are also raising prices – Samsung Electro‑Mechanics announced plans to hike prices in April.

- Taiwanese and Chinese competitors are not lagging: they are also considering price increases, especially for multilayer ceramic capacitors (MLCC).

- MLCCs are expected to become tens of percent more expensive already in the second quarter.

3. How this will affect end products – Smartphones: a single device typically uses over 1,000 MLCCs.

- Servers and motherboards use them in several times larger quantities.

- Therefore price increases for passive parts directly raise the cost of all electronic devices, from mobile phones to data centers.

4. Demand supported by AI – The artificial‑intelligence boom keeps high demand for MLCC.

- Production capacity at leading Japanese and Korean suppliers is loaded over 80 %.

- Murata plans to increase its order of high‑price‑segment MLCCs by about 20–25 % in the current quarter.

Thus, price hikes for passive components are already having a noticeable impact on supply chains and end‑product prices, and the demand surge from AI only amplifies this trend.