Chips Report for 2023 Q1

Global silicon industry trends: Inventories expected to fall in the first half of the year

Market research firm IDC expects global semiconductor revenue to decline year-on-year in the first three quarters of this year, turning positive in the fourth quarter and declining about 5.3% for the full year. IDC expects inventory adjustments to begin in the first half of 2022 and not bottom out until the first half of 2023, with growth in segments such as automotive and communications, but declines in storage, data centre and the Internet of Things.

Overall, semiconductor revenues will not turn positive until the fourth quarter of 2023, with revenues growing 7.5% annually, and global semiconductor revenues are expected to recover and reach a new record in 2024. Foundry revenue will be relatively flat in 2023, edging down 1.8% year over year for the full year, while TSMC will outperform the semiconductor industry as a whole. Moreover, the memory recession has been severe this year, with DRAM and NAND revenues both expected to decline by more than 20% annually.

According to recently released data from the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), the global semiconductor industry reported sales of $41.3 billion in January 2023, down 5.2% from December 2022 and down 18.5% from January 2022. China declined 8.0% month-on-month and 31.6% year-on-year. "While full-year 2022 sales reached record highs, the global semiconductor market began to witness a significant decline in the second half of the year that continued into the first month of 2023," said John Neuffer, President and CEO of SIA.

Terminal trends and opportunities

The SiC power device market is expected to exceed $2.2 billion in 2023

On March 9, according to TrendForce Research, the overall SiC power device market will grow 41.4 percent year-on-year to reach $2.28 billion by 2023, thanks to joint projects announced with automotive and energy companies such as Onsenmax and Infineon. the top two applications for SiC power devices are electric vehicles and renewable energy, which in 2022 reaching US$1.09 billion and US$210 million respectively, accounting for approximately 67.4% and 13.1% of the total market value of SiC power devices.

The global fold-able phone market is expected to grow by 52% year-on-year in 2023

Global fold-able smartphone shipments are expected to grow 52 percent year-on-year to 22.7 million units in FY2023, according to Counterpoint's latest global fold-able smartphone market forecast report. Although the overall scale is small, but in the key ultra-high-end market scale can not be underestimated; The market share is expected to reach double digits this year and more than 20 percent next year.

Shipments of smart home devices will return to growth in 2023

International Data Corporation (IDC) has released a quarterly tracker of global smart home devices. Due to the global economy recovers, IDC predicts that shipments of smart home devices will grow by a modest 2.2% in 2023. Among them, with the market upgrades drive demand release, IDC predicted that in 2023, China's smart home camera market will grow 7.5%. In this regard, the development of China's smart home camera market in 2023 should pay attention to three key directions: function upgrading to offline channel penetration, AI ability expansion of universal security demand and ecological linkage into a larger market.