It is expected that global semiconductor revenue will increase by 2.2% next year

The international economic research institution Gartner released the latest research report. In 2012, global semiconductor revenue estimates reached US$309 billion, and the annual growth rate was revised down from the 4.6% predicted in the previous quarter to 2.2%. The economic recession in the euro zone has brought a lot of uncertainty to the global economy. Consumers and corporate expenditures are affected by the highly uncertain economics and have caused an impact on the semiconductor industry. The downward adjustment of the forecast value is not only due to the economic recession, but also due to the inventory correction, there are some uncertainties in the supply and demand relationship.

PC production growth in 2012 was revised down from the previous forecast of 10.1% to 5%. Gartner said that although the weak economy has caused PC production to be the main cause of the expected decline, the floods in Thailand have resulted in shortage of hard disk supply and further slowed the growth of the PC market. Gartner believes that due to the disorder of the supply chain caused by the floods in Thailand, PC production will be limited to the supply of hard disks in the next few quarters until the hard disk is fully resumed.

Gartner's forecast released this quarter also increased the annual growth rate of mobile phone production in 2012 from 7% to 7.5%. In 2012, the output of mediatablet was from 110 million units, slightly downgraded to 107 million units, but it still grew by 63% compared to 2011. Gartner analysts pointed out that the increase in the output of smart phones will support the growth of the semiconductor industry in 2012.

In 2011, the DRAM market declined by 26%, the overall market will resume growth in 2012, and global DRAM revenue will increase by 3%. The growth of NAND Flash is the fastest, and is expected to grow by 16.6% in 2012, driven by the popularity of consumer mobile devices.