SEMI forecasts semiconductor equipment sales

SEMI, the global industry association serving the nano- and microelectronics manufacturing supply chains, this week released the SEMI Year-end Forecast at the annual SEMICON Japan exposition. The forecast predicts that worldwide sales of new semiconductor manufacturing equipment will contract 13.3% to $32 billion in 2013.

In 2014, all regions (North America, Japan, Taiwan, Europe, South Korea and China) except ‘Rest of World’ (ROW) are expected to have strong positive growth, resulting in a global increase of 23.2% in sales. Sales in 2015 are expected to increase by another 2.4%, with Japan, Europe, Korea, China and ROW registering positive growth.

Market size in billions of US dollars and percentage growth over the prior year. Totals and percentages may differ due to rounding of numbers.

The forecast anticipates that wafer processing equipment, the largest product segment by dollar value, will decrease 10.7% in 2013 to total $25.1 billion, on par with 2004 spending levels. It says the market for assembly and packaging equipment will decline by 22.1% to $2.4 billion in 2013. The market for semiconductor test equipment is forecast to decline by 20.7%, reaching $2.8 billion this year. The ‘Other Front End’ category (fab facilities, mask/reticle, and wafer manufacturing equipment) is expected in decrease 25.2% in 2013.

Korea, Taiwan and North America remain the largest spending regions, though of the three only Taiwan is expected to show an increase in spending for 2013. According to SEMI, in 2013 Taiwan will reach equipment sales of $10.2 billion, with North American sales totalling $5.7 billion and Korea sales registering $5.5 billion. Regions experiencing the steepest declines in spending in 2013 include Korea, North America and Europe. The equipment market in ROW, primarily Southeast Asia, is expected to increase 3.2%.

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