Annual sales records continue for acceleration/yaw sensors

USA: The high-flying acceleration and yaw sensor product category was brought back to earth in 2012 when price erosion pulled down annual sales growth to 7 percent—the lowest percentage increase for motion-sensing semiconductors since 2005, according to IC Insights’ new 2013 O-S-D Report—A Market Analysis and Forecast for Optoelectronics, Sensors/Actuators, and Discretes.

Despite slower growth, acceleration/yaw sensors—which are accelerometers and gyroscope devices primarily made with microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) technology—reached record-high sales of $2.54 billion in 2012, surpassing the previous peak of $2.37 billion in 2011, when market revenues rose 27 percent.

The new O-S-D Report shows acceleration/yaw sensor sales rising 12 percent in 2013 to $2.84 billion, followed by a 19 percent increase in 2014 to $3.39 billion.

Between 2012 and 2017, acceleration/yaw sensor sales are projected to rise by CAGR of 16.6 percent, reaching $5.47 billion in the final year of the forecast period. In the 2007-2012 period, acceleration/yaw sensor sales grew by a CAGR of 23.8 percent, according to the new 2013 O-S-D Report.

Since the 1990s, the use of MEMS-based accelerometers and gyroscope devices has expanded from automotive safety systems (primarily in car-crash airbag triggers and electronic stability controls for steering and braking) to new sensing applications in cellphones, tablet computers, video-game controllers, media players, and other portable consumer products.

A growing number of low-cost inertial sensors are being used to embed automated controls in portable products and support higher levels of system “intelligence,” based on measurements of movement. Multi-axis accelerometers and gyro devices are also being used together and combined with other types of sensors (such as magnetic-compass chips, pressure sensors, and light sensors) for multi-dimensional measurements in highly adaptive, intelligent systems that employ “sensor-fusion” software to simultaneously processes data from different devices.

With acceleration/yaw sensors moving into more high-volume systems applications, revenues for MEMS-based inertial devices have reached new record-high levels each year since 2005, based on IC Insights’ market data. Acceleration/yaw sensor sales crossed the $1 billion level for the first time in 2008, and three years later, in 2011, the market’s revenues passed the $2 billion mark. The new O-S-D Report’s forecast shows acceleration/yaw sensor sales crossing the $5 billion level in 2017, just three years after surpassing $3 billion in 2014.

Acceleration/yaw sensor unit shipments are also growing at strong annual rates, reaching a record-high volume of 2.75 billion devices in 2012, which was a 20 percent increase from the previous peak of 2.30 billion units in 2011. IC Insights is forecasting a 20 percent increase in acceleration/yaw sensor shipments in 2013 to 3.30 billion units worldwide.

However, average selling prices (ASPs) of inertial sensors are also falling fast.  In 2012, ASPs fell 10 percent to below $1 for the first time partly due to intense competition between device suppliers aiming to serve high-volume applications.

The new O-S-D Report projects that acceleration/yaw sensor ASPs will drop another 7 percent in 2013 to $0.86. In the next several years, ASPs are expected to stabilize, resulting in an average annual decline of 2 percent between 2012 and 2017, according to the new report.