14 DAY TRIAL // It seems that the semiconductor industry as a whole, not just the DRAM sector, has gone through a hard year, as analysts found themselves forced to downward adjust their market forecasts.
Some time ago, Gartner said that the overall chip market, for the year 2011, would show an increase of 5.1 percent compared to 2010.
Unfortunately, things did not turn out as originally intended, as the analyst firm had to not just lower the estimate of increase, but change it with one of decline.
Back in the second quarter, Gartner said that PC production would go up by 9.5% in 2011, but this figure was revised into 3.4%.
Also, the mobile phone production unit growth was changed from 12.9% to 11.5%, while DRAM ended up, unsurprisingly, as the most severely impacted.
They have a projected decline of 26.6% for the whole year, while NAND and data processing ASICs are not able to offset this, despite being set to evolve positively.
Overall, Gartner expects the semiconductor market to reach $299 billion, 0.1% lower than what 2010 allowed.
"Three key factors are shaping the short-term outlook: excess inventory, manufacturing overcapacity and slowing demand due to economic weakness," said Bryan Lewis, research VP at Gartner.
"Semiconductor companies' third-quarter guidance is well below seasonal averages. The current guidance by vendors points to flat to down third-quarter growth. Typically, we see guidance for 8-9% growth in the third quarter because of back-to-school and the holiday build."
According to the announcement, 2012 did not escape without a downward adjustment either, and it is possible that there will be further cause for pessimism down the line.
"2012 is the wild card. We have lowered our 2012 semiconductor forecast from 8.6% to 4.6% due to a worsening macroeconomic outlook," Lewis said.
"However, the odds of a double-dip US recession continue to rise and are raising fear that sales prospects will deteriorate further."