Sales in China’s integrated circuit (IC) market are expected to exceed US$100 billion (NT$2.96 trillion) for the first time in the country’s history next year and could reach nearly US$150 billion by 2017, a research report said yesterday.
China’s IC market generated US$81 billion in sales last year, up slightly from US$79 billion recorded a year earlier, according to the report by market information advisory firm IC Insights. The market advisory projected that the compound annual growth rate of sales in the China IC market from last year to 2017 would be 13 percent, 5 percentage points higher than the global growth rate of 8 percent.
In 2017, China is expected to account for 38 percent of the global semiconductor sector’s total sales, up from 23 percent recorded in 2007, and higher than the 31 percent registered last year, IC Insights said.
In terms of sales, China is likely to make up 62 percent of the total IC market in the Asia-Pacific region by 2017, up from the 47 percent seen in 2007 and up from the 56 percent recorded last year, IC Insights predicted in its report.
Meanwhile, the research firm said that China was expected to continue to rely heavily on foreign IC suppliers in the coming years. Only 11.2 percent of ICs sold in China last year were made in the country, and that share will rise only slightly by 2017 to 13.1 percent, the report said.
In addition, of the semiconductors made in China, no less than 70 percent will still be made by foreign vendors in 2017 with production facilities there, including SK Hynix Semiconductor Inc and Samsung Electronics Co of South Korea, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and US-based Intel Corp the report said.
The advisory firm added that the compound annual growth rate of China’s IC output value from last year to 2017 is expected to hit 16.5 percent, but added that its production will only account for an estimated 5 percent of its total global sales, estimated at US$389.3 billion, in 2017.
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