We’re excited to present this month’s excerpt from Future Horizons’ October report on the semiconductor market. Read on to discover the latest insights and outlook for the industry.
Executive Summary
August saw Opto’s growth tumble back, coming in at just 0.3 percent vs. last month’s 3.7 percent, with the average growth since the market turned down in September 2022 at minus 2.5 percent. July’s shipments were 10.4 percent down from its April 2022 peak.
The Discrete sector also continued its now 8-month long negative growth trawl, at minus 9.4 percent, compared with minus 9.2 percent in July and minus 12.3 percent in June, dashing last month’s hopes that the sector may have been showing the first signs of a broader industry recovery.
Excluding memory, the annualised IC market showed a more subdued 8.4 percent growth, reflecting just how strong an impact the memory rebound has been on the semiconductor market.
Whilst the overall year-on-year total Semiconductor market growth in August was 28.0 percent, up significantly from last month’s 18.0 percent number and June’s 15.9 percent growth, backing out the Memory, and to a lesser extent, Logic sectors, unfortunately reveals a much more sober picture, with the Micro, Analog, Opto and Discrete markets still gripped in recession.
As the year end approaches, there is finally a growing realisation that the earlier super-cycle euphoria around this year’s strong double-digit growth might have been misplaced given the increasing flurry of negative datapoints and softer-than-expected demand.
Aside from memory, deservedly celebrating a real recovery, key indicators such as the European and discrete markets remain in recession, Opto shows barely any growth, and unit growth has yet to recover. As we highlighted in our January 2024 industry update webinar, the current strong double-digit monthly annualised growth rates are more likely to be the semiconductor equivalent of ‘fool’s gold,’ with the deeper and broader real recovery from the 2023 collapse yet to happen.
From a volume and mainstream industry perspective, the semiconductor market is still in a deep downturn, despite a primarily memory-driven ASP surge driving strong revenue growth.
It is now eight quarters since the start of the recession in Q3-2022 making this correction one of the longest down periods ever.
We reiterate our belief that 2024’s rebound will prove a false dawn, with low single-digit growth expected in 2025 as the industry slowly recovers from the surplus inventory accumulated during the Covid boom.
Read The Full Report Here: https://www.futurehorizons.com/page/137/
If you missed last month’s industry update webinar, you can now watch the recording here. Plus, don’t forget—you can still get a 10% discount on the full report by using the code ‘Napier’ at checkout through the order link.
