2016 IC Market Forecast Raised from -2% to +1%

Estimated reading time: 1 minute

IC Insights will release its October Update to the 2016 McClean Report later this week.  This Update includes a review of IC Insights’ latest 2016 IC market forecast, an update on the rebounding DRAM market, and an extensive analysis of the optoelectronics, sensor/actuator, and discrete (O-S-D) markets. An excerpt from the October Update, describing the upgraded 2016 IC market forecast.

IC Insights has raised its IC market forecast for 2016 by three percentage points from a 2% decline to a 1% increase and its 2016 IC unit volume shipment growth rate forecast from 4% to 6%.  A large portion of this revision is due to a strengthening DRAM market.

Although the average third quarter sequential increase in the worldwide IC market since 2002 has been 8%, last year’s 3Q growth rate was barely positive with a meager 1% increase.  However, 3Q16 results were slightly above the past 15-year average and posted a strong 9% jump.  Moreover, with an anticipated increase of 1% next quarter, the total 4Q16 IC market is forecast to climb to $76.9 billion, a new quarterly record high, surpassing the previous high of $76.7 billion posted in 4Q14.

It should be noted that the average second half versus first half of the year growth rate in the IC market since 1990, including the forecast for 2016, is 8.9% (Figure 1).  However, IC Insights is forecasting that the 2H16 IC market will be up 12.3% as compared to 1H16, a strong turnaround from the extremely poor second half result of -1.2% posted last year and the highest second half growth rate since 2009.

With expectations for slightly better worldwide GDP growth in 2017 as compared to 2016 and continued firming of both DRAM and NAND memory prices, IC Insights believes that the worldwide IC market will grow by 4% next year (IC Insights’ detailed 2016-2020 IC market forecast by product type will be presented in the November Update).