Kao said that the top-five DRAM makers will see their total memory production for non-PC applications exceed 50% in the first quarter of 2006. He said DRAM makers in the future will be much less impacted by the ups and downs in the PC market.
(BTW it seems the grey mouse VSEA is doing very well; no upgrades, barely mentioned/overlooked and no option volume at all)
CE will be biggest market for panel and memory makers in 2006
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Max Wang, Hans Wu, and Cage Chao, Taipei; Rodney Chan, DigiTimes.com [Thursday 8 June 2006]
For panel and memory makers, 2006 is expected to be a year where consumer electronics (CE) will finally over take PC-related products to become their biggest market.
AU Optronics (AUO) vice president David Su, who doubles as general manager of the company's Consumer Electronics Display Business Group, yesterday pointed out that data from research firms and from AUO itself indicate that the fast growing CE market is pushing strong growth in sales for panel makers.
Su said the worldwide CE-use panel market will reach US$45 billion in 2006, outpacing panel sales of only US$37 billion for PC applications. While PC applications have been the top market for panel makers, Su said the gap between the CE and PC segments will only continue to widen.
For memory makers, the CE market is growing increasingly important. According to Inotera Memories president Charles Kao, the world's top-five DRAM makers have unshackled themselves from their over-dependence on the PC market. Judging from their current operations, Kao said that the top-five DRAM makers will see their total memory production for non-PC applications exceed 50% in the first quarter of 2006. He said DRAM makers in the future will be much less impacted by the ups and downs in the PC market.
However, pure-play foundries and IC designers may have to wait longer before CE becomes their chief market, industry observers indicated.
The constant need to upgrade PC performance will continue spurring growth in the logic IC segment, the observers said. For the CE segment, the IC solutions are mostly supplied by major international IDMs, and not too many of them are outsourced to pure-play foundries and IC designers, the observers said, adding that the PC and CE markets will remain equally important for foundries and IC designers for some more time. |
