Americas chip market follows Asia’s into decline

Market news | February 4, 2023

By Peter Clarke

semiconductor Analog

The Americas chip market was 6.6 percent smaller in 4Q22 than a year before, according to figures from the SIA. The Americas was growing quickly earlier in the year but has now followed the Asia-Pacific and China regions into decline.

The SIA reports data collected by the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics organization is based on a three-month moving average so the latest figures are the average of October, November and December and a proxy for the 4Q22.

The change in the Americas chip market growth in just one month of the three-month moving average – from 5.2 growth to a 6.6 percent decline – is extreme. Although it was to be expected as China and Asia-Pacific’s markets have been contracting for several months. China’s chip market was 26.4 percent smaller in 4Q22 than a year before, most likely due to a mix of covid lockdown measures being taken at that time and US sanctions impacting China’s ability to import chips.

The figures show the European and Japanese chip markets continued to grow, but at a reduced rate compared with previous months. It appears that the European and Japanese chip markets are suffering a delayed reaction – perhaps due to reduced exposure to trends in consumer electronics – but will also start to see their markets decline in 2023.

The combined result is that the global chip market was 14.7 percent smaller in 4Q22 than a year before. Nonetheless because of the strong start to the year WSTS has recorded the whole year of 2022 as one in which the chip market grew 3.2 percent. This is slightly higher than the 1.1 percent growth year tallied by Gartner recently (see Global chip market flat in 2022, Intel slumped).

According to December’s 3MMA sales data the Chinese market was worth US$12.63 billion, down 26.4 percent from the same period a year before. The Asia-Pacific market, excluding China and Japan, was valued at US$11.04 billion, down 17.1 percent. The Americas region was down 6.6 percent annually, Europe up 3.3 percent and Japan was up 0.6 percent.

The sequential quarterly decline in global sales had been reducing but leapt up in December’s figures. The sequential decline, partly driven by the shortness of December sales window, was 7.7 percent compared with 3.7 percent for Nov/Oct/Sept over August/July/June.

Three-month average of chip sales by geographic region for December and November 2022. Source: SIA/WSTS.

On a regional basis, sales into the Americas market saw the largest increase (16.0 percent) in 2022. China remained the largest individual market for semiconductors, with sales there totaling $180.3 billion in 2022, a decrease of 6.3 percent compared to 2021. Annual sales also increased in 2022 in Europe (12.7 percent) and Japan (10.0 percent).

The SIA observed that by product type analog circuits had the highest annual growth rate, 7.5 percent, reaching $89 billion in 2022 sales. Logic ($176 billion in 2022 sales) and memory ($130 billion) were the largest semiconductor categories by sales. Sales of automotive ICs grew by 29.2 pecent year-over-year to a record total of $34.1 billion.

“The global semiconductor market experienced significant ups and downs in 2022, with record-high sales early in the year followed by a cyclical downturn taking hold later in the year,” said John Neuffer, CEO of SIA in a statement. “Despite short-term fluctuations in sales due to market cyclicality and macroeconomic conditions, the long-term outlook for the semiconductor market remains incredibly strong, due to the ever-increasing role of chips in making the world smarter, more efficient, and better connected.”

Monthly data is given by the SIA as a three-month average although the source of the data, World Semiconductor Trade Statistics, tracks monthly data. The SIA and other regional semiconductor industry bodies opt to use averaged data because it evens out the actual data that typically shows troughs at the beginnings of quarters and peaks at the ends of quarters.