- Industry status as of May 2008
The SIA has released revenue numbers for March 2008 of $26.48 billion dollars (raw numbers not 3 month moving average) up 10.0% from $24.08 billion dollars in March of 2007. 10% growth for March brings the year-to-date growth up to 3.8% versus teh negative growth through February. Tabel 1 presents month-over-month and year-to-date growth by month.
Table 1 - 2008 Growth Rates
Month Month-over-month Year-to-date Jan -0.2% -0.2% Feb -0.3% -0.2% Mar 10.0% 3.8%
- Figure 1 presents revenue by month from 2005 through 2008.
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- Figure 1. Monthly worldwide semiconductor revenue.
In figure 1, the brown, green, purple and orange lines represent 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008 revenue respectively.
- 2006 began the year even with 2005, then showed steady growth until December that once again ran even with 2005. December was a disappointing month and brought down the year-to-date average growth to 8.5% versus the 9% growth we were expecting.
- January 2007 started the year with strong growth but February showed negative growth, March moved positive and April showed strengthening growth, May and June both showed negative growth, July and August showed strong positive growth before Septembers disappointing 1.0% growth, Octobers rebound to 6.6% and then Novmbers -0.7% and finally the year closed out in December with 1.7% growth.
- For 2008 we are expecting excess capacity to drive negative revenue growth. January and February have begun the year slightly down. March has now come in with strong 10.0% growth and pulled the year-to-date up to 3.8% growth.
2007 ended with the US economy slowing sharply a clearly negative sign while the leading foundries are reporting high utilization, a positive sign.
For 2008 we are concerned that too much new capacity is coming on-line. We believe that negative growth is likely this year althought investment in new capacity has been moderating recently giving us some hope that we could see a 1% or 2% growth year. With March now coming in at a surprisingly strong 10% growth the outlook for the rest of the year may be improving beyond our expectations.
Related articles
- Industry Status as of May 2008 - March 2008 has come in at 10%, well above our expectations. Year-to-date growth has now moved from -0.2% to 3.8% growth improving the outlook for the rest of the year. We still remain concerned about excess capacity.
- Industry Status as of April 2008 - 2008 has begun with two months of negative growth. Due to excess capacity coming on-line coupled with the weak US economy we believe 2008 will be a year of negative growth overall.
- Industry Status as of March 2008 - the SIA numbers for January show -0.2% growth. We remain concerned that too much capacity coming on-line in 2008 is going to lead to negative growth for the year.
- Industry Status as of February 2008 - the SIA numbers for December show 1.7% growth for the month and 2.7% growth for the year. 2007 was a year where growth swung from positive to negative month-to-month. Based on currently planned new capacity for 2008 we believe there is a strong risk of over-capacity leading to negative growth for the year.
- Industry Status as of January 2008 - the SIA numbers for Novmeber show -0.7% growth versus the same month a year earlier. 2007 has been a year of growth swinging positive and then negative month-to-month. We now expect that too much capacity coming on-line in 2008 will likely lead to negative growth for the year.
