European Semiconductor Distribution Market (DMASS) Concludes 2017 with All-time Record Sales

 

Semiconductor distribution ends highest fourth quarter ever with double-digit growth. Central, East and South Europe lead the way. Discrete, Power, Opto, Memory and High-End MCUs stand out.

London, February 12, 2017 – The European semiconductor industry ended 2017 on a positive note. According to DMASS Ltd., semiconductor sales as reported by the members in Q4/2017 ended with an increase over Q4/2016 of 11.6% at 2.01 Billion Euro, the highest-ever winter quarter since DMASS has existed. The full year 2017 ended 14.6% higher at 8.5 Billion Euro, also an all-time record.

Georg Steinberger, chairman of DMASS: “A combination of several factors led to this all-time-record year for DMASS members: high demand in all industries, long lead-times and price increases, new and exciting technologies, deeper penetration of existing applications with more semi technology. We see, however, a slight slowdown in the growth rate and a high order backlog, which in combination could mean a certain risk for 2018. The first quarter 2018 will show in which direction the year will go.”

From a regional perspective, Q4 turned out over-proportionally positive for Nordic, Benelux, Iberia, Italy, Eastern Europe, Turkey and Israel, with Germany sitting right on the average. For the full fiscal year, it really was the South and the East that drove the growth in semiconductor distribution. In Q4, of the major regions/countries, Germany grew by 11.7% to 597 Million Euro, Italy by 13.8% to 170 Million Euro, France (+9.8%) achieved 143 Million Euro and overtook the UK (+5.3% to 142 Million Euro). Nordic ended with +20.8% at 184 Million Euro and Eastern Europe with +12.4% at 316 Million Euro.

Georg Steinberger: “The long-term tendency of a production and thus market shift from the West to the East continues. Also Germany’s share of the European DTAM, which has been up to 34% in the past, came down to ~30% now.”

Product-wise, Q4 showed strong performance in Discretes, Power, Sensors, Opto and Memory, while Analog, MOS Micro and Logic in general (Programmable, Standard, Other) seemed to struggle. Analog components grew “only” by 8.5% to 571 Million Euro, MOS Micro by 9.9% to 424 Million Euro (mainly driven by high-end MCUs), Power by 23.9% to 209 Million Euro, Opto by 14.5% to 211 Million Euro, Memories by 18% to 170 Million Euro and Programmable Logic by 1% to 139 Million Euro.

Georg Steinberger: “Interestingly, the strongest product groups in the DTAM historically were also the ones that performed below-average in Q4 and the entire year – Analog, MOS Micro and Logic. Of the biggest single product categories, clearly the stars in 2017 were FETs and High-End MCUs.”

DMASS Ltd. reports to members only new statistics on Passive Components, Electromechanical Components and Power Supplies.

About DMASS

DMASS, a European non-profit organisation, is the only industry body that collates detailed semiconductor distribution market data on a quarterly basis by country and product groups such as microcontrollers, flash memories, analog components and many more. DMASS figures are collected and consolidated by Data Dynamics Ltd.

DMASS, founded in 1989, provides its members with a reliable statistical tool to evaluate their relative mass-market performance. The organisation consists of 38 active members in 2017 and represents between 80% and 85% of the total European distribution market, depending on the regions. To continuously increase its European market coverage, DMASS welcomes new membership applications from distributors and semiconductor manufacturers.