Global Fabless IC Market to Witness High Demand from Communication Devices Application
May 25, 2018 | TechnavioEstimated reading time: 2 minutes

Technavio market research analysts forecast the global fabless IC market to post a CAGR of close to 8% during the forecast period, 2018-2022. The increasing adoption of ICs to achieve interoperability among IoT devices is a key emerging trend that will impact market growth.
IoT has increased the need for interoperability among IoT devices, which has led to the origin of connected devices. Vendors across the market must work together on an open-source platform to set standards to determine the interoperability among IoT devices. For instance, AllSeen Alliance was founded in 2013 with an objective to create a larger ecosystem of vendors and products. AllSeen Alliance provides an open source IoT framework, AllJoyn, to enable companies and enterprises to create interoperable products. Through this platform, manufacturers of devices and apps can exchange information, regardless of brands and categories.
In this report, Technavio analysts highlight the rising penetration of ICs in the automotive sector as a key factor contributing to the growth of the global fabless IC market:
Rising penetration of ICs in the automotive sector
In the automotive sector, ICs are used to create safer and greener automobiles, which are cost-effective and offer high performance. Most OEMs use two or three ICs in automobiles depending on the complexity of the design. ICs are integrated into cars for audio amplifiers and various systems, including crash bag, air sensing, stability control, fuel injection, GPS, anti-lock braking, display, infotainment, power doors and windows, automated driving, and collision detection.
“The automotive market is expected to grow during the forecast period owing to the increasing car production. This will generate significant demand for semiconductor ICs which enable partial or high automation that will lead to fully autonomous vehicles. In 2017, the automotive IC segment represented close to 13% of the global IC market, which was valued at around 293 billion,” says a senior analyst at Technavio for embedded systems research.
APAC dominated the global fabless IC market in 2017
This market research report segments the global fabless IC market based on application segments (communication devices, computing devices, consumer electronic devices, automobile components, and others), by device type (digital ICs and analog ICs), and by key regions (the Americas, APAC, and EMEA).
APAC dominated the global fabless IC market in 2017, accounting for a revenue share of more than 72%. The market in this region is expected to grow further owing to the focus on electronics manufacturing in the region. APAC was followed by the Americas and EMEA.
Communication devices held the largest share of the global fabless IC market in 2017, accounting for a share of close to 40%. Advances in communication technology will create a demand for ICs during the forecast period. The communication devices segment was followed by the computing devices segment. However, the market share of this segment is expected to decrease by over 4% during the forecast period owing to declining PC sales.
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