European semiconductor distribution market powers through

Georg Steinberger, Chairman of DMASS: “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, the UK/Eire by 9.6% to €154m and France by 8.5% to €151m. Eastern Europe grew by 28.3% to €336m and Nordic by 14.1% to €184m.

Steinberger added: “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 ICs as the biggest product group in DMASS grew 16.7% to €656m (this represents 30% of DMASS Total). MOS Micro by 15.6% to €443m, Power by 13.1% to €210m, Opto by 10.2% to €223m, Memories by 27.9% to €183m and Programmable Logic by 27.1% to €155m.

Steinberger continued: “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 2-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.”