Johannesburg, 20 Oct 2000
Chip companies have experienced explosive growth in recent years and, while Dataquest predicts a decline in these earnings, Guy Whitcroft, managing director of , reckons the end of this growth is far from over. "Market researcher Dataquest has warned that semiconductor sales, which are currently going through the roof, will taper sharply towards 2003 and 2004," he says. "However, with a host of new products appearing on the market every day - and the `wired household` just around the corner, there will be devices that we haven`t conceived of as yet on the market that will require processors," he declares.
Whitcroft says semiconductor sales are currently driven by demand for mobile phones, PDAs, DVD players and of course, PCs. "Dataquest`s estimates that the chip industry will make sales of $231.6 billion this year, and increase of 36.9 per cent on 1999. However, it indicates that are that next year will see a slight wane - that will continue to 2002 when it expects growth to pitch to 13.9 per cent, followed with a 5.3 per cent reduction in sales by 2003."
"While these predictions appear to be rather dire, it must be noted that the chip business is cyclical. A case in point is the fact that current growth and demand is fuelled by products that we could only dream of in the Eighties - the mobile phones and the PDA`s. With the lightning development of technology, I believe that by 2003, the devices that will be driving semiconductor sales have yet to be released to the mass market," he says.
Whitcroft notes that Dataquest`s numbers are generally backed by the Semiconductor Industry Association, which has released figures that predict growth to fall to 14 per cent in 2002 and then to 12 per cent in 2003. "But watch for the increased use of microchips in the household, in motor vehicles and, of course, in the office. This may drive a whole new cycle for the chip industry," he concludes
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