Terri - I think our disagreement centers around two things.
1) First, I think you are talking about the end of last year, which I'll admit, was pretty good. There were indeed people starting to upgrade, and the Q/Q growth looks pretty good. However, the year over year growth is only about 17%, which is pretty anemic in this industry. (Anything below 30% indicates that capacity is probably shrinking, or upgrades are being postponed.) And when I say that expect '98 to be about the same as '97 I mean Y/Y not Q/Q.
2) Second, I primarily follow the front-end suppliers and ignore the automation areas. (I have reasons, but too long to express here. Anyway, this is the AMAT thread.) And, I suspect that you would find that the front-end growth was much less than for automation and test, although it is hard to track since SEMI breaks out the front-end numbers only occassionally. But over the last year I've noticed that whenever they have broken it out, it is much less impressive than the automation/test segment. I would be suprised if there was any growth at all in this segment. (In retrospect it is obvious that in an overcapacity situation automation is going to be the area with the best chances. Too bad I only saw it with 20-20 hindsight.)
Clark |
