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iSuppli lowers semiconductor forecast on memory and mobile phone issues |
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Apr 24, 2007 at 02:41 PM |
 iSuppli Corp has made a modest revision to its 2007 semiconductor industry forecast reducing revenue growth to 8.1 percent compared to 10.6 previously. The semiconductor market is now expected to reach $281.4 billion in comparison to the $260.2 billion achieved in 2006.
"Some weakening of end-markets seen late in the fourth quarter of 2006, an excess inventory problem that carried over into 2007 and an anticipated drop in the mobile-phone market have contributed to a less-optimistic outlook for the semiconductor market in 2007," said Gary Grandbois, principal analyst for iSuppli. "However, this decline in the outlook is relatively modest — and a large portion of the 2007 forecast downgrade comes from a substantial reduction in the memory chip forecasts, specifically in the memory segment."
Indeed, iSuppli remains sanguine on the memory market this year, citing the fact that the biggest factor behind its forecast revision was due to a reduction in expected DRAM revenue.
On the back of the 35.2 percent growth seen in DRAM in 2006, iSuppli believes that
Revenues will only rise by 8.6 percent to $36.9 billion in 2007. The market research firm blames a plunge in ASPs that has already occurred, while increased capacity by memory manufacturers as more shift production away from NAND will not help price rises through the year, should they occur.
Another matter for concern iSuppli's picture is in the overall flash market that includes NOR and NAND. According to iSuppi, this market will see revenue declines of 3.3 percent in 2007, mainly due to weakness in the NAND sector although the research firm also highlighted the expected fall in mobile phone sales this year, hurting NOR in particular.
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