The softening of growth in the premium handset market in the short term is impacting spending on semiconductor manufacturing equipment globally, which is expected to decline by 8.5 per cent to $34.6 billion this year, research firm Gartner said today.
Softening in the premium mobile device market slowing growth in the short term, Gartner said in a release.
“Worldwide semiconductor manufacturing equipment spending is projected to total $34.6 billion in 2013, an 8.5 per cent decline from 2012 spending of $37.8 billion,” it added.
Capital spending will decrease 6.8 per cent in 2013, due to diminishing 28-nanometer (nm) investment from a softening in the mobile phone market, it said.
“Weak semiconductor market conditions that continued into the first quarter of 2013 generated downward pressure on new equipment purchases,” Gartner Research Vice President, Dean Freeman said.
However, the semiconductor equipment quarterly revenue is beginning to improve and positive movement in the book-to-bill ratio indicated that spending for equipment will pick up in the remainder of 2013, he added.
“Looking beyond 2013, we expect that the current economic malaise will have worked its way through the industry and spending will follow a generally increasing pattern in all sectors throughout the rest of the forecast period,” Freeman said.
Gartner predicts that 2014 semiconductor capital spending will increase 14.1 per cent, followed by 13.8 per cent growth in 2015.
The next cyclical decline will be a mild drop of 2.8 per cent in 2016, followed by a return to growth in 2017.