Worldwide Semiconductor Revenue in 2010 to Rebound to 2008 Levels: Gartner

Worldwide semiconductor revenue is on pace to total $226 billion in 2009, an 11.4 percent decline from 2008 revenue of $255 billion, according to the latest outlook by Gartner, Inc. This forecast is better than the third quarter projections when Gartner forecast semiconductor revenue to decline 17 percent in 2009. Semiconductor revenue in 2010 is expected to bounce back to the same revenue level as 2008 at $255 billion, a 13 percent increase from 2009. “The most significant changes for the semiconductor industry came from application-specific standard products (ASSPs), memory and compute microprocessors, as all three products benefited from a strengthening PC market,” said Bryan Lewis, research vice president at Gartner. “ASSPs and memory, primarily NAND flash, also benefited from an improved outlook for cell phones.” PCs are the single largest application driving the semiconductor rebound: PC unit growth projections dramatically improved from double-digit declines at the start of 2009 to the current low-single-digit positive outlook. This strong PC recovery has made microprocessors and DRAM two of the most-noteworthy device categories of 2009.