Date: 28/01/2009

Overall worldwide semiconductor revenues declined at rate of 20 - 30% in Q408

By reading into the few revenue announcements made in last two weeks for the 4th quarter 08 by many leading semiconductor companies, it can be estimated that, the overall worldwide semiconductor revenues are falling in the percentage range of 25% to 35%.

To list few,

26% fall in sales revenue in 4th Quarter 2008 triggered TI to layoff 1800 employees
AMD's 4th quarter 2008 revenues down by 35% compared to 3rd quarter
Cypress revenues are down by 26% in Q4 of 08, but PSoC register record revenue
Zoran revenues dropped by 40% to $74.7 million in 4Q 08
PLX Technology revenues for the 4th quarter fiscal 08 are down by 32% to $14.2 million
Microsemi's first quarter of fiscal 09 revenue slid only by 3% in comparison to 4Q 08
Vanguard International Semiconductor reports 2008 revenue of NT$16,120 million
Wireless IC expert Marvell revises its Q4 fiscal 09 financial outlook
Declining semiconductor sales is reflected in dropping semi equipment sales
Intel's year-2008 revenues down by 2% to $37.6 billion
ST Micro revenues for the Q4 08 tells nearly similar story of other semi vendors


All these companies have reasoned economic recession for the fall in revenue. The revenue is not specific to any region, all over the world most of the semiconductor companies are experiencing declining revenues.

Either growth or fall, the memory segment is generally the first one to experience the effect. Semiconductor memory revenues drop is far higher than the industry's average.
Qimonda is the first victim to face the worst.

One of the segment, which is less impacted by the recession, are precision analog ICs, they are remaining nearly flat.

The major culprits in application segment are consumer and automotive. Nearly every middleclass consumer world-over who earlier craved for costly handheld portable consumer systems, have become very cautious in his/her spending. And so is the reason for drop in car sales.

In year 2001 it was dot com burst whereas in 2008-09 its looks like consumer market burst.

The industrial, aerospace/defense, are not to worry areas with no visible negative growth.

However the hopeful star among all these negatives is Solar PV (Photo Voltaic). Superbly growing at rates, which can be estimated >50%.