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Samsung Electro-Mechanics books 290 billion won of AI-server capacitors for 2027 delivery
Samsung Electro-Mechanics signed a 290 billion-won AI-server capacitor contract, its sixth long-term deal this year, taking the total to 3.9 trillion won. The contract covers only 2027 deliveries, so it shows buyers booking a year ahead while the terms of the earlier deals stay undisclosed.
The Investor · Invest desk
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What happened
- The buyer is identified only as a global company, and Samsung Electro-Mechanics withheld its name under a confidentiality agreement.
- By Seoul Economic Daily's tally, the earlier MLCC deals were 454 billion won in June, 295.1 billion won in July, and 1.07 trillion and 285 billion won in September.
- An AI server uses more than 10 times the MLCCs of a conventional server, up to 600,000 a rack, and Seoul Economic Daily reports that only a handful of suppliers can make them.
- The company has long-term MLCC agreements with about 10 global customers and is negotiating with several more.
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Why it matters
- constraint The newest contract ends on Dec. 31, 2027, so it supports a forecast of one year of deliveries to this buyer and has to be re-signed before any 2028 volume is assured.
- exposure The buyer has tied a year of AI-server capacitor supply to one of a handful of qualified makers, so it has few substitutes if Samsung Electro-Mechanics falls short on output or quality.
- decision Against last year's 11.31 trillion won of revenue, the 3.9 trillion won of contracts is about 34 percent if delivered in one year and far less per year if spread over several, so the backlog cannot be valued until terms are known.
Long-term, in this contract, means twelve months of deliveries signed about twelve weeks before the first one [1] [2] [19]. The buyer has fixed its 2027 capacitor supply in October 2026 (or rather, the part of that supply coming from Samsung Electro-Mechanics), and it will not be buying that part order by order next year [2].
The rest of the year's contracts could follow one of three patterns. If each one looks like this deal, the company is selling a year ahead and re-signing every year, and the 3.9 trillion won [5] is roughly one year of deliveries. If the June through September deals run several years, that total is spread thin. Seoul Economic Daily's comparison of the 2.4 trillion won MLCC total with last year's 11.31 trillion won of revenue [11] [9] would then set a multi-year number against a single year. The third pattern is about who wants the commitment: with few qualified suppliers [10], the buyers may be the ones pushing for term contracts.
Dollar figures help separate the first two. At Yonhap's conversion of 290 billion won to $215.8 million [6], the five MLCC deals come to about 2.39 trillion won [20], or roughly $1.78 billion [16]. Start from Goldman's 2025 base of $1.4 billion [7]. With Goldman's 34 percent annual growth and the company's claimed share of more than 40 percent [8], Samsung Electro-Mechanics would sell about $1.0 billion of AI-server MLCCs in 2027 [21]. The contracts, at $1.78 billion, are larger than that whole year. Either the earlier deals deliver over more than twelve months, or the market is bigger than Goldman estimates.
I think the earlier deals run longer than a year and the 2027 contract is the short one. If so, a good part of the 2.4 trillion won of MLCC contracts is delivered after 2027. The counter-case is specific. The September deals included inductors [12], so some of the $1.78 billion is not MLCCs at all, and Goldman's market size may simply trail what buyers are spending. The view is wrong if the company shows that the June through September contracts each cover a single calendar year.
The two reports also count differently. Yonhap has six deals worth 3.9 trillion won across silicon capacitors, MLCCs and inductors [4] [5]. Seoul Economic Daily has five MLCC deals worth 2.4 trillion won [11]. That leaves one agreement of about 1.5 trillion won [15], bigger than the largest MLCC deal at 1.07 trillion won [12]. Neither report describes its product or term.
"Customer demands for high-performance MLCCs continue to rise along with the growth of the AI market," an official at Samsung Electro-Mechanics said, according to Seoul Economic Daily [14]. This buyer's 2027 order equals about 2.6 percent of last year's revenue [18].
What to watch
- Whether the unnamed buyer signs for 2028 deliveries around October 2027, and whether that contract is worth more or less than 290 billion won.
- A disclosure of the product and term behind the roughly 1.5 trillion-won agreement that Yonhap counts and Seoul Economic Daily does not.
- Quarterly revenue set against last year's 11.31 trillion won, to see how quickly the 3.9 trillion won of contracts turns into sales.