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Raining on IC Insights' $400B forecast parade |
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Dec 15, 2006 at 12:29 PM |
A leading semiconductor market forecaster, IC Insights, released a few nuggets from its upcoming annual report this week.
Bill McClean and his merry band see global IC market revenues hitting the $400 billion mark by 2011, a mere three years after the industry will supposedly reach the $300 billion mark. The company also predicts capital expenditures will come in at $80 billion in 2011, a salivational figure for forward-looking tool and materials companies execs.
Given the track record of chip-industry forecasters, I don't put much faith in predictions more than a year or two out, even though I consider Bill to be one of the better numbers guys. Sure, $400 billion will be a milestone when it is reached, whether it's in 2011 or not. But I wonder if ExxonMobil or whichever megacorp tops the Fortune 500 in 2011 will have also hit the $400 billion mark by then, a highly likely event since the Biggest Bad Boy of Big Oil is closing in on 400 Really Big Ones this fiscal year.
For all the chip industry's growth and prosperity, its combined revenues still pale---and will continue to pale---in comparison to the monsters of the corporate midway.
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