The European Semiconductor Distribution Market is continuing to grow. The latest DMASS (Distributors’ and Manufacturers’ Association of Semiconductor Specialists) numbers show that sales in Q3/CY13 grew by 1.8% over the previous year’s Q3 to 1.46bn Euro, a good sign for the entire fiscal year.
Georg Steinberger, chairman of DMASS, said: “The summer quarter held up nicely, bookings within the membership and in the industry seemed quite strong. Our optimism that 2013 will end positive was obviously justified. Even if it will only be in the low single-digits, we are talking about a 5.8bn Euro year, among the highest in DMASS history. Interestingly, the slow mode only applies to revenue – in volume (number of components sold) the market grew significantly.”
Regionally, Southern Europe is outperforming the UK and Central Europe. Italian sales grew 13.4% to 132m Euro, and sales in France rose 14.7 % to 110m Euro. Eastern Europe was also a bright spot growing 11.5% to 160m Euro. In contrast the UK market dipped 7.8% to 119m Euro. Central Europe which encompasses Germany, Benelux, Switzerland also performed poorly. After 9 months, the decline there is between 4 and 5%, compared to a flat DMASS Total of -0.3%. For Q3, Germany reported sales of 463m Euro (-2%), UK 119m Euro (-7.8%), Benelux and Switzerland 52m Euro each (-5.8% and +0.6% respectively).
Georg Steinberger: “An amazing recovery in the South, considering the macro-economic problems in France and especially Italy. Eastern Europe still has potential to grow internally and as a manufacturing stronghold for Western companies. The sluggish conditions in Central Europe and specifically Germany remain a concern, as it is not clear whether they indicate structural changes, like a loss of production to other regions. Although the German economy defies the signs of crisis Europe-wide, it is certainly very anti-cyclical.”
Product-wise, most key areas grew except programmable logic and memory. Programmable logic declined by another 8.3% to 122m Euro, which puts the year-to-date drop at -11%. Power management and consequently total analogue grew by 5% to 138m Euro and 2.5% to 412m Euro respectively. Sensors, MCUs, power and opto grew between 8.9% and 6.4%. While other logic (ASSPs, ASICs) grew disproportionally by by 15.6%. Memory experienced a further decline of 14.6%. Interesting to watch are optoelectronic devices and in particular LEDs, the latter increasing further by a solid 12%.
Georg Steinberger: “The message from distribution to the market seems clear: continued pressure on standard products like memory and low-cost devices and interesting growth opportunities in design-intensive product segments that require technical support and application expertise.”
DMASS only reports industrial semiconductor sales, defined as all semiconductors, excluding the PC channel.
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