At the end of the third 2016 quarter, the sales of semiconductors in the world grew by 3.6% in comparison with the first 9 months of the previous year.
The growth is due to China (+12.0%), to Japan (+4.2%) and to the rest of Asia Pacific (+1.7%). Negative were instead Americas with -2.4% and Emea with –4.0%.
The German trade association Zvei, in its preliminary balance sheet, has communicated to the press that 2016 ends for semiconductors with the 4.1% drop versus 2015 in Germany, falling to a value of 11.4 billion dollars. This downturn is anyway inferior to the 5% one estimated for Emea on the whole.
In 2017, the situation is likely to improve: Zvei provides for the approximate 3% growth for both Germany and Emea.
The only third quarter scored the 11.5% growth versus the corresponding 2015 period, thus compensating the negative trend of the first two quarters. In this third quarter, anyway, all geographical areas showed a positive situation.
A temporary ranking, drawn up by the agency IC Insights, confirms the fact that also in 2016 little has changed among the major world manufacturers of semiconductors compared to 2015. The first three places are still held by the US Intel, the South-Korean Samsung and the Taiwanese TSMC. The United States Qualcomm ranks instead fourth, surpassing the South-Korean SK Hynix, fourth in 2015 and now sixth in the list. In 2016, Broadcom from Singapore, sixth the previous year, has conquered the fifth place.
