European semi distribution sales – up 5.3%

The European semiconductor distribution industry continues to grow, except for France, Benelux, Nordic and Switzerland, all the major regions increased. Discretes & Opto show highest increases. Georg Steinberger, chairman of DMASS, commented: “Our market seems to have reached a solid growth level in the 5+% range. Particularly encouraging was the fact that Germany, after a few weak quarters, is back on track and brought in a very healthy 11% increase over CY13. For DMASS in total, the first half of CY14 ended at 6.6% growth, to 3.2 Billion Euro. We are pretty certain that the full year will end positive.” Regionally, Germany and Eastern Europe led the growth with 11% and 10.2% respectively. German sales climbed to 514 Million Euro, Eastern Europe (excl. Russia) to 183 Million Euro. While the UK added a solid 7.3% to 131 Million Euro, Italy grew by 3.7% to 161 Million. France on the other hand declined by 2.6% to 122 Million Euro, while the Nordic region with 141 Million Euro sales lost 8.7% over Q2/CY13. Georg Steinberger: “Nordic and Benelux were certainly the weak spots last quarter while Germany regained some of its old strength. Over the course of 6 months, the picture has stabilised somewhat, but some risks remain: France develops below average, Benelux, too, and we do not know yet the impact of the sanctions against Russia in our market, although Russia only contributes 4% to the DMASS Total.” Product-wise, Optoelectronics grew over-proportionally (13.5% to 164 Million Euro), driven by LEDs, as did Discrete components (13.6% to 89 Million Euro). Power grew by 8.2% to 162 Million Euro, Analog components by 9.5% to 472 Million Euro and MOS Micro by 6.4% to 336 Million Euro. Behind the curve remained Memories with -1.8% to 122 Million Euro and Programmable Logic with -6.9% to 118 Million Euro. Georg Steinberger: “We observe for some time now clear growth spots like High-end-MCUs, High-end Analog and LEDs, while other mainstream technologies – former shooting stars like Programmable Logic, Other Logic, DSPs or Memories seem to go through a weak period; arguably, an interesting development that has to be watched more closely.”