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Technology Stocks : Applied Materials No-Politics Thread (AMAT) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Gottfried who wrote (8519)	1/20/2004 7:49:21 PM
From: Proud_Infidel	Respond to of 25522

Japan takes lead over U.S. in IC capital spending By Mark LaPedus Silicon Strategies 01/20/2004, 7:22 PM ET SANTA CRUZ, Calif.--Japan has regained the leadership position in investment for semiconductor capital spending, pushing the United States into second place, according to Strategic Marketing Associates (SMA) today (January 20, 2004). The data show Japan boosted its projected capital spending by 47 percent over last year, which also saw a 31 percent increase in Japanese capital spending over 2002 levels, according to SMA, a market research firm in Santa Cruz. U.S. semiconductor companies, which have been number one in capital spending since 1995, reduced their capital spending on new plants and equipment by 12 percent in 2003 and SMA estimates that it will slump another 2 percent this year. "U.S. capital spending has declined partly because major companies have shifted production to offshore foundries to reduce costs, and also as US companies have reduced domestic expansions in reaction to the economic slowdown," according to the report. "The rest of the world better sit up and take notice," says George Burns, president of SMA, in a statement. "Japanese companies have spun off divisions and merged operations. They are back and have their sights set on increased market share and the leading edge capacity to achieve it." In the early 1990s, Japanese chip companies dominated the industry in new capital investments as they built large new facilities to manufacture DRAMs. But Japanese manufacturers lost market share throughout the 1990s to new competitors from Korea and Taiwan, and gradually withdrew from the DRAM business and reduced capital spending. By 2002, Japan's capital spending had fallen to less than 20 percent of the world total, putting it behind the United States as the leader in capital spending. Both the US and Japan trail the combined spending of Asia Pacific companies, however, which includes China, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. "Now Japan has refocused on new growth markets for chips, including microprocessors and integrated system chips for computer, digital games, consumer products such as digital cameras and DVD players and recorders," according to the report. "Japanese companies have launched aggressive projects to build new wafer fabs that use the newest technology 300-mm wafers to replace the earlier 200mm wafers."