Halvledermarkedet har fået en god start på 2014
Det europæiske marked for halvlederkomponenter (solgt gennem distributionsleddet) voksede ifølge DMASS 7,7 procent i første kvartal af 2014 i sammenligning med samme periode sidste år (in english).
The European semiconductor distribution industry seems to be back on its track of slowly strengthening its position in the European high-tech industry. According to DMASS (Distributors' and Manufacturers' Association of Semiconductor Specialists) semiconductor distribution sales in Q1/CY14 grew by 7.7% to 1.6 Billion Euro. Specifically core markets in Western Europe have stabilised.Georg Steinberger, chairman of DMASS, reviews the results:
- The weak forces of 2012 and 2013 are behind us. In most of the major regions, the market enjoyed high single- digit or even double-digit growth. The continued average selling price pressure notwithstanding, distribution shows a good performance. Order books are full, we are looking ahead to a very positive 2014.
From a regional perspective, the main message is that Germany is slowly recovering from its lacklustre performance over the last 2 years. Germany grew by 6.6% to 511 Million Euro, representing now 32% of the total market. Similarly, the Italian market is recovering from its macro-economical crisis and grew by 12.7% to 157 Million Euro. UK sales increased by 10.6% to 136 Million Euro, France grew by 7.6% to 124 Million Euro and Eastern Europe (w/o Russia) by 12.5% to 178 Million Euro. Structural reasons in the Nordic region resulted in a decline of sales by 4.6% to 146 Million Euro.
Georg Steinberger:
- It seems that the crisis mode in some Western European countries is over - Italy and Spain have reported double-digit growth rates, catching up with their old strength. Germany slowly regains its old position although the last quarter still was under-average.
Looking at product categories, commodities did surprisingly well - Discretes grew by 16.9% (90 Million Euro), Power Discretes by 14.5% (166 Million Euro), Standard Logic by 9.7% (30 Million Euro) and Standard Analog by 7.1% (377 Million Euro). Optoelectronics grew by 9.1% (158 Million Euro), here first and foremost LEDs, which increased by double digits. While most Memories suffered from price weakness and stayed flat (+1% to 123 Million Euro), MOS Micro enjoyed a 10.7% growth, to 334 Million Euro. Programmable Logic again proved disappointing, with a decline of 3.8% to 124 Million Euro.
- The clearest trend in semiconductor distribution at the moment seems to be the shift from low-end MCUs and Stand-Alone DSPs to 32-Bit architectures, predominantly ARM. Also very positive is the development of High-Power LEDs for the various lighting market segments. Programmable Logic on the other hand still waits for its final recovery - after six consecutive quarters of below-average performance, says Georg Steinberger.
