Taiwan displaced Japan last year as the world's second-largest market for equipment used to make microchips, an industry report said.
"Taiwan continued to set the pace for the industry and for the first time finished the year as the second-largest market," said Stanley Meyers, president of Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International, on the SEMI Web site.
Taiwan Semiconductor (台積電) and United Microelectronics Corp (聯電), the world's two largest make-to-order chip companies, are responsible for most of Taiwan's demand for chipmaking equipment. The two companies nearly doubled production capacity last year to meet an increase in orders for chips from customers such as Motorola Inc and Toshiba Corp.
North America remained the largest market for chipmaking equipment, with sales jumping 77 percent to US$13.15 billion in 2000 from the previous year. Sales in Taiwan reached US$9.42 billion, more than doubling from 1999. Japan accounted for US$9.22 billion in sales, up 67 percent from the previous year.
Outlook While information-technology spending of companies will fall, Taiwan will probably continue to serve as the world's No. 2 market for chipmaking equipment, according to analysts.
"There will be about a 30 percent decline in capital expansion this year from Taiwan, which is close to what we're going to see in Japan at over 20 percent," said Daniel Heyler, an analyst with Merrill Lynch & Co in Hong Kong. "Taiwan should probably maintain No. 2 position over the next 2 to 3 years." Sony Corp, NEC Corp and Toshiba are among the largest Japanese companies contracting more of their production to chipmakers in Taiwan, Heyler said. Taiwan Semiconductor expects the Japan share of sales to increase to 18 percent by the end of 2001 from 13 percent in the fourth quarter of last year, he said.
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