According to the latest data released by the American Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), global semiconductor sales in June were $34.5 billion, a 5.1% increase from the $32.9 billion in the same period last year. In addition, sales in the second quarter increased 5.1% from the same period last year. However, SIA President and CEO John Neuffer warned that the economic environment is not good, and the semiconductor market is still very uncertain in the second half of the year.
The membership of SIA covers companies that account for 95% of US semiconductor revenues and 2/3 of the world's semiconductor companies outside the US. SIA pointed out that global semiconductor sales of $34.5 billion in June were 0.3% less than May's $34.6 billion, and 5.1% higher than last year. From a regional perspective, sales in the Americas were strong and had the highest growth, with a growth of 29.0% over the same period last year, mainland China by 4.7%, and Asia Pacific by 0.4%, but Japan and Europe fell by 2.2% and 17.1%, respectively.
According to the industry forecast report released by WSTS, they believe that the global semiconductor industry sales will reach $426 billion in 2020, which is a 3.3% increase from $412.3 billion in 2019 and 6.2% in 2021. However, John Neuffer warned that semiconductor sales remained flat in the second quarter of this year, but due to continued macroeconomic headwinds, the semiconductor market still has great uncertainty in the second half of the year.
As the epidemic has stimulated new demands such as online conferences and online education, the production of semiconductor industry has been maintained at a high load this year. For example, UMC's capacity utilization rate in the second quarter reached 98% as reported. British research firm Informa estimates that the capacity utilization rate of global semi-conductors in the third quarter will rise 1.8% on average from the same period last year to 88.8%. According to statistics from another semiconductor association, SEMI, North American semiconductor equipment, which is a leading indicator of sales, shipped $2.346 billion in May, an annual increase of 13.6%.
