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

To: Gottfried who wrote (8612)	1/27/2004 2:23:59 PM
From: Proud_Infidel	Respond to of 25522

Future Horizons sees two-year chip market boom By Peter Clarke Silicon Strategies 01/27/2004, 12:41 PM ET LONDON -- Not only will 2004 be a boom year for the worldwide chip market, with 32 percent growth, but so too will 2005, according to Malcolm Penn, founder and chief executive officer of the Future Horizons market research company, speaking at his company's IFS2004 meeting here. Penn expressed strong confidence in the market moving ahead by 32 percent to US$220.3 billion in 2004. He was less sure about 2005, advising delegates to keep their eyes on the pace of capital expenditure on chipmaking equipment, but he still put down 28 percent growth in 2005 to take the market to US282.0 billion. On this basis 2006 would be the next recessionary year for the semicondutor market with a decline of 8 percent in the market size to US$259.4 billion. A year ago, Penn predicted the market would recover with 18.0 percent growth in 2003, and he proudly pointed to an 18.6 growth achieved by the chip market in 2003. However Penn omitted to mention that he lost some confidence in his 18 percent figure during the middle of 2003 (see June 11, 2003, story). "In 2003 the recovery was consumer driven, there was no corporate spend. In 2004 the corporate spending is resuming, even for telecommunications infrastructure," Penn said. He added that with digital consumer, telecommunications and corporate IT spending all in alignment along with all the general economies of world growing, with a world economic growth figure of 4.5 percent as the best estimate a very strong boom in 2004 was now inevitable. "32 percent for 2004 is probably the highest of any of the forecasters but the market growth will at least be in the high 20s," said Penn. "It will be driven by very strong unit demand plus some inventory building. Not much double ordering this year but it could start to happen." Penn said he saw Europe consistently doing a few percentage points worse than the other regions, because of slower general economies in Europe and problems with a strengthening euro." "The big problem for 2005 is excess capacity. When will that monster bite us?" Penn asked. Penn pointed that it takes six months to go from equipment in to a fab to packaged silicon going to a customer and that as equipment makers are already building backlogs 2004 is safe against oversupply. However if chip companies filled out their fabs as fast as possible it might be possible to collapse the market in 2005. "We don't think 2005 will be a recession year but we need to look at what will happen in the second half of 2005. Once the capex starts to explode you know the chip market will fall off a cliff twelve months later." But with unit volumes heading up strongly for all of 2004 and most, if not all, of 2005, and with average selling prices at last following suit, Penn advised his audience to, "Enjoy it. It doesn't get much better than this."

To: Gottfried who wrote (8612)	1/27/2004 8:37:19 PM
From: Proud_Infidel	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25522

Digital camera shipments fall 1% in Dec. after big year Silicon Strategies 01/27/2004, 8:00 PM ET SAN FRANCISCO--Digital camera shipments out of Japan posted yet another year of growth to 43.4 million units in 2003, up 77 percent from 2002, according to WR Hambrecht LLC. Digital camera shipment grew 66 percent in 2002 and 43 percent in 2001, according to the investment banking firm, which cites the Camera & Imaging Products Association of Japan. Japan accounts for 80-to-90 percent of global digital camera shipments. "We believe total industry shipments met or exceeded the high end of our forecast of 45-50 million units," according to the report. "December shipments by Japanese vendors totaled 5.0 million, up 70 percent year-over-year and down 1 percent month-over-month," the report said. "We believe the rapidly falling prices on digital cameras are driving consumer uptake. Exiting the year, the ASP for a 3-4-megapixal camera was $201 vs. $303 in January equating to 34% decline over the course of the year," it added