European Semiconductor Distribution
5.7 % Growth in Q2/2018
The European semiconductor distribution industry continued on its solid yet slow growth path through Q2/2018. Despite severe allocation issues in many key technologies and products, the market according to DMASS Ltd., only grew by 5.7% in Q2/2018, to 2.32 Billion Euro.
Regionally, the clear growth leaders were low-cost manufacturing regions or countries, with the exception of Austria and Benelux. While UK and France grew around the average, Italy ended shy of double-digit. After a solid Q1, Germany only grew by ~2% in Q2. Nordic countries on average grew by 8.1% while Eastern Europe steamed ahead with 14.4% plus. In numbers, Germany grew ~2% to 671 Million Euro, Italy by 9.2% to 224 Million Euro, UK by 6.9% to 166 Million Euro, France by 5.4% to 161 Million Euro, Nordic by 8.1% to 200 Million Euro and Eastern Europe (w/o Russia) by 14.4% to 386 Million Euro.
Product-wise, the surprising strength of commodities were the highlights of Q2. Discretes, Power Discretes and Sensors grew in double digits, so did some programmable Memory technologies, Standard Logic, MPUs and High-end-MCUs. At a product group level, Discretes grew by 20.2% to 138 Million Euro, Power Discretes by 16.4 to 245 Million Euro, Opto by 3.8% to 223 Million Euro, Analog ICs by 3.2% to 679 Million Euro, Memories by 5.5% to 194 Million Euro and MOS Micro by 6.4% to 479 Million Euro. Programmable Logic declined by 3.4% to 150 Million Euro and Other Logic by 4.3% to 115 Million Euro.
Georg Steinberger, chairman of DMASS: »It is always hard to judge the market by quarter, if you find a lot of side-effects like channel-shifts, exchange rate and allocation. However, the long-term trend is clear: low-cost manufacturing regions continue to win, while the major markets tend to stall at a high level.«
