This doesn't sound like a downturn to me<g> 26% growth year over year....
Semiconductor equipment capex to
peak in 2001, according to analyst
By Jack Robertson
Electronic Buyers' News
(08/15/00, 02:31:08 PM EST)
Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co. Tuesday forecast that a
three-year hike in semiconductor-equipment spending will begin to
taper off after 2001.
Jay Deahna, an analyst in Menlo Park, Calif., for the financial
investment firm, said semiconductor capital spending in 1999
average 23% of revenue and 26.3% of revenue in 2000, in both
years exceeding the ratios of the last chip spending spree in 1993
and 1994. However, Deahna said the capex ratio in 2001, while still
strong at 26.6% of revenue, will tail off from the 27.8% ratio
achieved in 1995, the last year of the previous boom.
He said the biggest change in the latest semiconductor capital
spending surge is a shift away from building new capacity for
PC-related chips. "In the current cycle, the PC food chain
represents about 35% of global semiconductor capital spending,"
Deahna said in his report. "In the 1993-95 cycle, about 65% of
semiconductor capital spending was focused on the PC food
chain."
Deahna said another important difference in the latest chip capex
cycle is the ratio of spending on back-end assembly and test
equipment, which at 4% of revenue is twice that of the 1993-95
cycle. |
