Electronics industry: March semiconductor sales value 25.2 billion US dollars market warmer

From March semiconductor data released by SIA, SEMI and IPC, the electronics industry market gradually recovered and went out of the off-season. Due to the high base of sales value last year, most agencies this year forecast industry growth to be within 8%.

Affected by rising costs of raw materials and labor, many companies reported lower-than-expected quarterly results, and there is still a risk of downside valuations. It is expected that with the recovery of the market, the company's performance will be moderately released, and the investment rating of the industry will remain “neutral”;

TSMC lowered its global non-memory semiconductor industry growth forecast from 7% previously to 4%. A slight slowdown in global economic growth, related issues in Europe and the impact of Japan’s recent earthquake on the customer supply chain are the reasons that prompted TSMC to lower its expectations.

IDC: In 2010, global semiconductor sales revenue increased by 24% year-on-year to US$282 billion. Device applications such as smartphones, media tablets, e-book readers, automotive infotainment, laptops, data center servers, and wireless and wireline communications infrastructure have driven strong semiconductor consumption. IDC also predicts that global semiconductor sales revenue will increase by 6% to 8% in 2011.

The increase in sales for passive components manufacturers and upstream raw material suppliers in March was mainly due to the accumulation of inventories due to the low base in February and the disruption of supply chain by downstream customers of the 311 Japan earthquake.

SIA: Global chip sales were 25.3 billion U.S. dollars in March, an increase of 8.6% year-on-year, and a 2.5% increase. Global chip sales in the first quarter were US$75.8 billion, up 8.6% year-on-year and 0.4% quarter-on-quarter. The growth in demand for individual consumers and businesses, but the industry outlook was mixed, personal computer demand declined, and smartphones and tablet PCs grew strongly.

SEMI: March semiconductor equipment manufacturers in North America received a global average of $1.6202 billion in 3-month moving orders, a slight increase of 1.5% from the February revised value and 21.6% higher than the $1.33 billion in the same period in 2010. The average value of the initial shipment was US$1.6997 billion, which was 7.6% lower than the February revised value (1.8393 billion US dollars), but 54.4% higher than the 1.10 billion US dollars of the same period in 2010. The order shipping ratio rebounded to 0.95. WitsView: The shipments of large-size panels in March 2011 were 57.57 million, which was a 21% increase from February. Although overall panel shipments maintained a growth rate of 21% in the same month, except for the increase in shipments of TV and tablet PC panels, the growth rate of notebook PCs, netbooks, and monitor panels showed a decreasing trend.

LEDinside: As the first quarter of 2011, the LED market's demand recovery rate is not as strong as expected, including the large-scale panel, LED lighting inventory adjustment, making LED manufacturers are still facing downward pressure on prices. Among them, LED quotations for large-size panel applications have fallen at different rates. TV backlight applications have seen the most significant drop, with a drop of 10% to 15%.