European Semiconductor Distribution Market (DMASS) shows sequential recovery in Q1/CY13

Q1/CY13 ends -5% lower than Q1/CY12 but 16% higher than last quarter. Stronger recovery in Nordic and Eastern Countries.

London, May 15, 2013 – The European Semiconductor Distribution Market currently looks at a sequential recovery. Although Q1/CY13 ended 5% lower than the comparable quarter last year, the sequential development is extremely promising – plus 16% compared to Q4/CY12. Q1 ended with sales of 1.48 Billion Euro, according to DMASS (Distributors’ and Manufacturers’ Association of Semiconductor Specialists).

Georg Steinberger, chairman of DMASS, commented on the results: “I am sure that many market participants are relieved that the worst is obviously behind us. However, the 5% decline against Q1/CY12 clearly shows that there is still some risk in the market, particularly through price pressure and production shifts. At least, the booking situation has slightly improved, so that another year of decline does not seem too probable.”

Among the major regions, the differences in growth/decline have been quite impressive – between 1% growth in the Nordic and Eastern Region and a decline of over 9% in Germany. More specifically, in the Q1/Q1 comparison Germany ended at 478 Million Euro (-9.3%), Italy at 139 Million Euro (-7.7%), UK at 123 Million Euro (-3%), France at 108 Million Euro (-6%), Eastern Europe at 160 Million Euro (+1.2%) and Nordic at 153 Million Euro (+0.8%). These regions account for ~80% of DMASS total.

Georg Steinberger: “Arguably, at Q1 a comparison of regional shifts does not make a lot sense, however the over-proportional German weakness over the last few quarters seems to have come to a halt finally.”

Product-wise, the major segments developed within a reasonable corridor, between -11% and +13%. In detail, Programmable Logic declined by -11.3% to 130 Million Euro, while Optoelectronic Devices grew by 2.3% to 142 Million Euro. Analog products, by far the biggest segment, went down by -2.8% to 426 Million Euro, MOS Micro ended at 302 Million Euro (-6.9%), Sensors grew by almost 13%, Other Logic (ASSPs mainly), stayed flat, all other segments were negative.

Georg Steinberger: “While most technologies are used across industry segments and participated in the general weakness (specifically Power, Discretes, Analog, Memory and MOS Micro), Sensors and Opto stood out as growth opportunities, a trend that will continue for a while. Reason: end applications like Lighting are growth markets with lots of room for differentiation and engineering-supported market development activities. The same is true for Advanced Analog technologies and Power Management.”

About DMASS
DMASS (Distributors’ and Manufacturers’ Association of Semiconductor Specialists), 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 currently consists of 34 active members 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.