Asia-Pacific dominates IC sales in largest system categories in 2014

USA: Data presented in IC Insights Update to the 2014 IC Market Drivers report confirms Asia-Pacific’s firm grip as the dominant market for IC sales—a continuation of what has been a long and ongoing trend.

As shown, Asia-Pacific is forecast to account for nearly 59 percent of the $285.9 billion IC market in 2014, followed by the Americas region, Europe, and Japan.

The Asia-Pacific region is particularly dominant with regard to IC marketshare in the computer and communications categories, and to a lesser extent in the consumer and industrial categories. Globally, the communications segment first surpassed the computer segment to become the largest end use market for ICs in 2013 and it is forecast to extend its marketshare lead to 1.1 points in 2014.

Europe is forecast to account for the largest share of the automotive IC market in 2014, but with Asia-Pacific increasingly becoming the focus of new car sales, it is expected to gain top share of IC sales in this systems segment in 2016.

IC Insights’ Update to the IC Market Drivers 2014 report forecasts total IC usage by system type through the year 2017. Highlights from forecast data include the following items.

• The two highest growth end-use markets for ICs are forecast to be automotive and communications, having 11 percent and 7.4 percent 2013-2017 CAGRs, respectively.

• After slumping to only $10.6 billion in 2009, the automotive IC market is forecast to reach $21.4 billion in 2014 and $28.8 billion in 2017.

• Two largest end-use market segments—computer and communications—are forecast to hold 73.7 percent of the total IC market in 2017, about flat from the 73.9 percent share forecast in 2014.

• The Asia-Pacific region is forecast to gain IC marketshare over the next four years and reach 60.9 percent in 2017. In contrast, Europe and Japan are expected to continue to decline in share with the Japan region holding only 7.7 percent of the total $330.2 billion IC market in 2017.