Tokyo Electron Chairman Foresees $1 Trillion Global
Chip Market By 2015
(04/22/98; 10:44 a.m. ET)
By Jack Robertson, Electronic Buyers' News
Akita Inoue, chairman of Tokyo Electron, said at a Semiconductor Equipment Materials International Semicon China seminar in Shanghai Wednesday that the global chip industry could reach nearly $1 trillion by 2015.
But in the immediate future, the executive said chip makers must find a way to make the business profitable. Inoue cited a study of the top
five Japanese device markets that showed in the 10-year period to end September 1998, chip manufacturers made total capital investments
totaling $42 billion and generated total operating profit returns of $12 billion. During the past two years, however, the total operating results of the five Japanese chip makers resulted in a loss, he
said.
Inoue made the case for consistent annual capital investment, saying one of the Japanese companies, which he did not identify, garnered
the largest operating profit -- $4.5 billion over the 10 years on $9 billion in capital spending. But a financial analyst at the conference said Inoue's figures actually showed even the best Japanese return reached only 50 percent of its investments over the 10-year period.
Despite the present Asian financial crisis, Inoue said the region, excluding Japan, would surpass Europe in semiconductor production by 2002, while attaining a 20 percent global market share. He also expected the capital investment cutbacks in the Asia-Pacific region to be temporary, with its capital equipment spending by 2002 to nearly reach the U.S. level. The region would have 32 percent of global chip investment in that year, compared with 34 percent in the United States, 22 percent in Japan, and 12 percent in Europe.
Aloha |
