With a plunge in automobile sales at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, semiconductor manufacturers worldwide curbed their production of automotive semiconductors, which are considered to generate relatively narrow profit margins. However, demand for automobiles in fact surged unexpectedly thereafter, mainly due to people's behavioral changes during the pandemic to avoid close-contact settings as much as possible.
This consequently gave rise to the supply shortage of automotive semiconductors. After the turn of 2021, this shortage grew further, partly affected by natural disasters and a fire accident at a semiconductor factory in Japan.