"European Semi Recovery Underway" - DMASS

DMASS is forecasting that the European semiconductor market sales will be flat in 2012.

The industry association which includes distributors and manufacturers says the first quarter of 2012 has seen inventory correction and careful ordering by customers. Despite reporting the fourth highest quarter sales in its history, the decline against Q1/2011 amounted to 15%. The quarter ended at 1.54bn Euro. The positive news is that the recovery is on the way, with a sequential growth over Q4/2011 of 14%. 

Georg Steinberger (left), chairman of DMASS, commented: “We could not imagine to really go back to Q1/2011 record levels. The market conditions were quite different then. Throughout the beginning of 2012, inventory correction and careful ordering by customers still played a major role and kept the bookings levels relatively moderate. With a start of -15% into the year, it is almost clear that 2012 will at best be flat against 2011.” 

The regional difference was made again by Eastern Europe and Russia. While all Western European markets on an annual basis declined between 9.1% (Iberia) and 27.8% (Austria), Eastern Europe in total grew by 6.6%, and Russia by 4.4%. The major regions behaved quite differently. Germany declined by 18.6% to 522m Euro, Italy by 24.9% to 150m Euro, UK by 15.9% to 122m Euro and  France fell by 12.1% to 115m Euro. The Nordic region (including the Baltic States) dropped 21.5% to 150m Euro. 

Added Steinberger: “The well-known tendency of production transfers to Eastern Europe continues. Most of the reported sales come from the transfer; the local design-driven markets develop at a slower pace, but nevertheless promisingly. Russia is competing with Benelux for the number 5 rank of countries/regions.” 

The only products showing year over year growth were high-brightness LEDs, other opto and DRAMs.  All other sectors declined with the deficit falling between -2.2% (MPUs) and couplers (27.8%). The major product groups were all in decline. Analogue ICs slumped 16.5% to 436m Euro, MOS Micro dropped 17.8% to 319m Euro, programmable logic was down 10.9% to 145m Euro and  power fell 19.5% to 152m. 

Georg Steinberger concluded: “There is not a clear against-the-trend picture among the products, except maybe the High-brightness LEDs which finally take up speed. And certainly MCUs were suffering over-proportionally and also see a slower comeback than other products. No surprise are legacy technologies like EPROMs and Bipolar Power slowly dwindling away, as they are replaced by Flash respective MOSFETs and IGBTs.”