For the semiconductor industry in 2016 revenue forecast and market of power for a long time, various analysts have very different views; They in a chip in the United States industry executives annual party, said China would be a key factor, but also it is almost impossible to predict.
IC Insights of analyst Bill McClean is currently one of the most optimistic, he predicted semiconductor industry revenue will grow by 4% in 2016; International Business Strategies (IBS) of Handel Jones is the most pessimistic, he originally expected industry revenue will decline by 1.5% this year, but said the worst is also likely to decline by 3%. Gartner is predicting growth of 1.9%.
McClean bullish on the cause of the industry, including global GDP growth, Intel (Intel) and TSMC (TSMC), and other big optimistic earnings forecasts, and yield estimation beforehand can DRAM supplier tight; He expected, electronic systems, sales will grow 2% this year, the semiconductor capital equipment sales will grow 1%. In the long run, the chip in revenue growth rate can be up to 6-7% on average.
Analysts on IC market prospects and power
IC Insights for semiconductor industry outlook in 2016 the most optimistic
But Jones argues that memory chip prices and smartphone sales will continue to decline; Apple (Apple), for example, iPhone sales may only 48 million this year, rather than the current estimate of 52 million.
At the same time, 14/16 of the fabs Cheng Jing nanometer high order system output may encounter difficulties; Jones said, only Apple and Samsung (Samsung) is introduced using FinFET process of chips, he reckons, this makes the wafer generation industry has a total of 50000 wafers per month of higher-order process spare capacity. Anyway, he predicted chip industry camp received will restore single-digit growth in 2017.
Analysts on IC market prospects and power
IBS may be our chip sales growth forecast, instead of 1.5% - 1.5% cut into -
(source: IBS)
Gartner also think chip industry will have a stable growth, but from the start of this year, and 2014 ~ 2019, the average growth of 2.7%; The bad news is that Gartner semiconductor research vice President Bob Johnson said the smartphone sales will continue to slow until around 2019, smartphone will become a saturated market like today's PC.
NAND flash memory it would be a "a rare bright spot"; Johnson said the market in 2019 to a compound annual growth rate of 8.7% on average, the solid-state hard disk application of vertical NAND chip sales will continue to rise. The growth of the Internet of things (IoT) chip speed will be faster, but the Internet's contribution to the semiconductor sales in 2019 estimated at less than $30 billion, roughly about 7.2% of the chip market sales, the main reason is the average selling price of the chip is low.
But Johnson also said that this means that the Internet of things will make the semiconductor market is far from "notorious cheap consumer electronics products"; He expected, the enterprise will invest in all sorts of equipment including gateway, to analyze and make full use of the Internet of things of real value.
Analysts on IC market prospects and power
Gartner predicts the semiconductor industry to grow 1.9% in 2016
(source: Gartner)
China is seeking a "wild card"...
Despite analysts are divided on the forecast to the market, he agreed with China will in the next few years in the semiconductor industry plays an important, but I don't know what is the "wild card" role; Said to be investing heavily in the billions of dollars, including state-owned and private funds to bolster their power semiconductor industry, hope to be able to produce chips manufacturing power.
Gartner predicts that by 2020 China will launch three fabs projects, including the NAND flash memory, the DRAM, and a FinFET process logic element contract; That is what the agency forecast global semiconductor capital equipment spending to 4.7% rebound from recession this year, and 2.3% in 2014-2014 average compound growth rate of reason.
IBS Jones said, China has to Shanghai China LiWei electronic (Hua Li) investment of $5 billion, but the month capacity in 30000, 5000 ~ 40000 pieces of logic wafer generation industry, there is still lack of technical partners. So far, the Chinese government planners have three fabs plan prepared 20 billion dollars, the total investment amount may be increased to $50 billion.
IC Insights McClean said, he did not see that China is now actively want to buy all kinds of chip suppliers, including Fairchild and tried to a minority stake in Taiwan semiconductor testing the strategy behind why: "those who have no meaning."
China has also actively expand in 5 g honeycomb communication technology in the field of leadership, this is Jones think chip industry will drive the future growth of the market; He pointed out that ninety percent of the world's mobile phones are made in China, Huawei (Huawei) alone has 70000 r&d engineers, the company and have been made in the field of communications infrastructure and mobile world leading position.
In addition, analysts expect that chip suppliers "and crazy" will be escalating, especially those who suffered growing bottleneck industry; Last year's chip industry M&A mainly concentrated in the relatively high cost structure and profit performance than the overall market, 10 pieces of eight trading case, expected future will see more consolidation.
