On April 26, IC Insights' latest report pointed out that sales of DRAM and NAND Flash strongly influence the entire IC market.
The DRAM and NAND flash markets have the same strong cyclicality as the IC industry. The market cycle is mainly affected by capital expenditures and capacity fluctuations. IC Insights predicts that the cyclicality of the DRAM market in 2019 will remain extremely unstable.
DRAM is the largest market in the semiconductor industry in 2018, reaching $99.4 billion, and the second-ranked NAND flash is only $40 billion. Since 2013, the memory chip market has been a driving force for the growth of the global IC market.
In 2017, the memory market grew by 64%, driving the IC market to grow at a total rate of 14%. Although the memory market began to slow down in the fourth quarter in 2018, it only increased by 26% for the whole year, but it still pushed the IC market to grow by 6%.
IC Insights pointed out that by 2019, the memory market is expected to become a negative factor in the growth of the global IC market. This year, the memory chip market is expected to decline by 24%, which is expected to reduce the overall IC market growth rate by 9%. However, if the memory chip market is not included, this year's IC market will be the same as last year.
