
Chip market will grow in 2020, accelerate in 2021, says bullish WSTS
Weakness in analog, sensors, opto and discretes will be more than compensated for by strong memory sales, WSTS reckons. This puts WSTS at odds with Gartner, which recently forecast that the global chip market will contract in 2020 by 0.9 percent (see Covid-19 will wipe out chip market growth in 2020, says Gartner).
WSTS thinks the market will be worth US$426.0 billion in 2020, almost exactly the same as it was predicting in September 2019 (see WSTS trims chip market forecast…again). The annual growth figure of 3.3 percent for 2020 over 2019 is reduced from its previous forecast because 2019 finished stronger that it had forecast.
WSTS Spring 2020 forecast summary through 2021. Note: numbers in the table are rounded to whole millions of dollars, which may cause totals by region and by product groups to differ slightly. Source: WSTS.
WSTS puts the growth down to strong sales of memory ICs, a market it expects to grow 15 percent. Logic will hold its own as mixes move from consumer electronics towards data center and infrastructure spending. Analog, sensors, optoelectronics and discrete semiconductors will be weak with contracting markets.
Geographically, the US and Asia-Pacific, including China, will grow while the markets in Europe and Japan will contract.
The mixed forecast for 2020 is complemented by an entirely positive one for 2021. All regions and all product categories are expected to turn in growth resulting in the total market growing 6.2 percent to reach $453.3 billion.
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WSTS trims chip market forecast…again
Covid-19 will wipe out chip market growth in 2020, says Gartner
How Covid-19 will hit the opto, sensors, discrete markets
