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Q1/2018 - European Semiconductor Distribution Market (DMASS) Shows Solid Growth in Q1/2018

DMASS reports 6.9% growth in semiconductor distribution for Q1/CY18. Smaller countries and Eastern Europe increase faster than key regions. Discretes, Power, Sensors and Programmable Logic grow double-digit.

London, May 8, 2018 – The European semiconductor industry continues to grow solidly in 2018. According to DMASS Ltd., semiconductor sales as reported by the members in Q1/2018 ended at a record 2.28 Billion Euro, 6.9% over Q1/CY17 and 13% above Q4/CY17.

Georg Steinberger, chairman of DMASS: “As we face peak demand in many industries and long lead-times for many semiconductor products, the growth is no surprise. It could have been even higher, considering channel shifts back to some manufacturers and the negative exchange rate effects from a weak US-Dollar. It remains to be seen how sustainable this is, considering that customers have to push out production in many instances due to hard allocation in other component segments. Nevertheless, at the moment outlook is solid.”

Regionally, the real surprise was the double-digit growth in smaller countries in Northern and Eastern Europe as well as in Austria and Iberia. Among the bigger regions, Italy grew fastest (9.7% to 220 Million Euro), followed by Germany (6.4% to 695 Million Euro) and the UK (6.3% to 166 Million Euro). France reported below average growth of 3.4% to 157 Million Euro. Eastern Europe in total grew 12% to 366 Million Euro and Nordic by 5.4% to 187 Million Euro.

Georg Steinberger: “In a nutshell, the smaller countries grew faster than the big ones. The mix of fast-growing countries is surprising, however, reaching from smaller Nordic tech economies to increasingly critical production hubs in Eastern Europe. Italy’s high-tech industry continues to surprise positively as well.”

A closer look at the products breakdown reveals strong and solid growth in Discretes (Small Signal, RF Discretes), Power Discretes (MOSFETs) and Sensors as well as in Programmable Logic – all double-digit – while Opto, Analog, Memories and Other Logic (ASSPs) came in short – between 1 and 2.5%. Analog, the biggest product group, grew by 2.4% to 672 Million Euro, MOS Micro by 8% to 477 Million Euro, Power by 16.9% to 241 Million Euro, Opto (including LEDs) by 2.3% to 217 Million Euro, Memories by 2.4% to 184 Million Euro and Programmable Logic by 13.5% to 153 Million Euro.

Georg Steinberger: “Looking at the market by product, we cannot see a very consistent picture in Q1, some of the below-average increases in big product categories may be driven by allocation or channel shifts. However, one quarter does not really tell a story. After the dust of various market effects has settled, the situation may become clearer (and so far the weight of the big product groups has not really changed dramatically).”DMASS Ltd. reports to members only new statistics on Passive Components, Electromechanical Components and Power Supplies.