Gartner said that the semiconductor market would grow by 7.2% in 2017, to $364.1 billion, a ‘complete turnaround’ for the industry after just 1.5% growth in 2016. The company said that inventory replenishment and increasing ASPs would be big factors in memory and application-specific standard products (ASSPs).
Overall, the mixed growth seen in 2016 will turn into a broad and more consistent growth in 2017. Areas to watch for in 2017 are the industrial, automotive and storage markets, which are growing quickly but represent a smaller portion of the overall market. Additionally, the slow-growth outlook for traditional applications such as smartphones and PCs highlights the importance of semiconductor markets outside of these categories, notably the IoT.
