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Good News for Semiconductor and Related Industries: An Upward Trend, Says
Advanced Forecasting
Cupertino, California - July 23, 2003 - As
underlying demand for Semiconductors and industry actual shipments begin
to converge, they will merge in to an upward trend, fueling the upswing
Advanced Forecasting had predicted more than 18 months ago. This is good
news to the semiconductor and related industries as the latest downturn in
the silicon cycle has been longer and deeper than any previous recession.
“It is common knowledge that sales of ICs in units have strengthened since
March 2003, following a few months of hesitations; They currently stand at
5% below their all time peak of 7.7 billion units in October 2000,“ stated
Rosa Luis, Director of Marketing and Sales for Advanced Forecasting.
“This situation would have been more favorable, but the state of
over-capacity in the installed base of semiconductor manufacturing
equipment continues to keep IC revenues down. They only reached $10.6
billion in May 2003, 34% below their peak in 2000,” added Luis.
“Nevertheless, we see early signs of an end to the over-capacity situation
which will facilitate the strong growth Advanced Forecasting has predicted
more than a year and half ago to occur in the second half of 2003.”
The growth rate of IC revenues varies among world regions. While the
Americas continue in the red (in May 2003 it held a -1% growth rate,
year-over-year), other regions are hovering within a pretty robust average
range of +15%, in which revenues from sales into Asia-Pacific lead at the
growth rate of +27%xxxx, Japan at +19%, and Europe at +11%. These growth
rates have managed to stay in this range for the past six months,
indicating a stable upsurge for the semiconductor industry.
The impact of strengthening demand for ICs on semiconductor manufacturing
equipment is slow. Bookings of Wafer Process equipment, sold by vendors
like Applied Materials, Novellus and Tokyo Electron, improved slightly
from April to May 2003 (+2%), while test equipment exhibited a more
remarkable improvement from January to May 2003 +56% (the Test segment is
significantly smaller in comparison to the Wafer Process segment). “As in
previous recoveries,” said Luis, “the equipment segments lag behind the
semiconductor market. Until now, they have behaved as we had forecasted
more than a year ago.”
The mood last week during the semiconductor equipment industry’s largest
trade show, Semicon West 2003 in San Francisco, was one of cautious
optimism. Improvements are being witnessed across several companies, a few
revealing that Q2-2003 was a strong quarter.
Advanced Forecasting offers quantitative forecasts of all ICs,
semiconductor equipment (Front-End and Back-End), disk drives, PCBs, Fab
Capacity Utilization, Wafer Shipments, and DRAM ASPs. Forecast rolling
horizons extend up to 19 months. It is the only forecasting firm that has
guaranteed its forecasting services with a full refund period since its
inception (1986).
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