DRAM revival fuels record semiconductor market growth
Semiconductor Business News
(03/29/00, 09:40:28 AM EDT)
SAN JOSE -- Bolstered by a resurgence in the memory market, the worldwide semiconductor market grew 22% over 1998 and posted revenue totaling $168.6 billion, according toDataquest Inc., a unit of Gartner Group Inc.
The 1999 results broke the previous industry high of $151.3 billion recorded in 1995. The strongest growth segment in the industry was the memory market, which increased 41% over 1998 revenue.
While the Americas region continued to lead the industry, accounting for 32.8% of semiconductor revenue in 1999, Asia-Pacific, which took 25% of the market, showed the strongest growth with a revenue increase of 32.7%.
The report, "Final 1999 Semiconductor Market Share: It was a Very Good Year!', noted that the various mergers and divestments that took place in 1999 caused unusual results for some vendors. For example, Motorola experienced a revenue decline of 9.8% because of the divestment of its discrete-semiconductor business, which became On Semiconductor, while Hyundai's revenue grew 168.5% because of its merger with LG Semicon.
Furthermore, Ron Bohn, director of research for Dataquest's semiconductor group, noted that the industry can expect that the continued expansion of the communications network including the Internet will prompt further growth for product segments like digital signal processors, application specific standard products and optical semiconductors.
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