Gartner has released a new report, predicting that worldwide semiconductor revenue will reach $411 billion in 2017. The figures represent a growth of 19.7%, the highest since the industry’s recovery from the global financial crisis.
Jon Erensen, research director at Gartner said:
“Memory continues to lead the semiconductor market higher and is expected to increase 57% in 2017 as supply and demand dynamics increase prices. A shortage of memory, and in particular DRAM, is driving semiconductor revenue higher.
Strength is spreading to other semiconductor categories as well with non-optical sensors, analogue, discretes and image sensors all forecast to grow over 10% in 2017. Higher memory costs and component shortages are cause for concern as we enter the fourth quarter.
Memory is driving the bill-of-materials cost higher across electronic equipment categories and we are starting to see increased costs get passed on by OEMs through higher pricing.”
Gartner estimates a further growth of 4% to $427.4 billion in 2018, with a small decline of 1% predicted for 2019 as memory supply issues begin to ease, lowering the average cost of sale.
