Distributors report soaring semiconductor sales

Georg Steinberger, chairman of DMASS comments: “As many market participants feel right now, the dynamic growth over the last nine months was unprecedented. The significant allocations in several product areas make it difficult to predict the rest of the year, but it would be safe to assume that double-digit growth will continue through 2017. DMASS Totals of €8bn, an all-time record, are in range for the full year. What is surprising, is the fact that the growth impact comes from almost all industry segments, driven by a higher electronics content across many applications.” 

Regionally, Poland, Turkey, Russia and Israel lead the growth wave, with increases between 30 and 40%. The major regions trailed the overall growth – Germany as the biggest single market grew by 13.7% to €653m, Italy by 13.4% to €207m Euro, the UK/Eire by 9.6% to €154m Euro and France by 8.5% to €151m. Eastern Europe grew by 28.3% to €336m and Nordic by 14.1% to €184m. 

Adds Steinberger: “If you look at the growth in Eastern Europe, it is mainly driven by production shifts from Northern and Central Europe. Positively surprising is the resilience of the Italian high-tech market against the domestic economic problems.”  

At the product side, the growth is across the board, a sign for healthy market development. Other Logic (application-specific logic) and Memories have seen the highest growth rates, followed by Programmable Logic.

All other product segments grew under-proportionally except single product categories like Analogue Interface, Flash Memories or High-End-MCUs.

Analogue IC sales surged 16.7% to €656m. This is the biggest product group in DMASS and represents 30% of DMASS Total.

MOS Micro sales climbed 15.6% to €443m, Power sales were up 13.1% to €210m, and Optos grew 10.2% to €223m.

Memory sales rocketed 27.9% to €183m Euro, a climb matched by Programmable Logic sales which reported a 27.1% to €155m. 

Says Steinberger: “Standing out from the crowd are memory and logic products in general, application specific logic and DRAM particularly. Programmable Logic is experiencing higher growth despite channel shifts from distribution to direct, but this could be seasonal. However, even without these very particular growth spikes, the distribution market in Europe shows healthy double-digit growth. ” 

“Looking forward remains difficult”, said Steinberger: “Lovely to see two-digit growth as record levels continue, but with the challenges ahead on the distribution channel – whether it is business model, margin pressure or regulatory influences – the outlook becomes teeth-grinding. I am sure distribution will master the aforementioned problems and turn them into interesting business propositions for customers.”

** DMASS claims a coverage of 80 to 85% of European Semiconductor DTAM