IC Insights ups 2017 IC market forecast to +22%

IC Insights has raised its IC market growth rate forecast for 2017 to 22 percent, up six percentage points from the 16 percent increase shown in its Mid-Year Update. The IC unit volume shipment growth rate forecast has also been increased from 11 percent depicted in the Mid-Year Update to 14 percent currently. A large portion of the market forecast revision is due to the surging DRAM and NAND flash markets. In addition to increasing the IC market forecast for this year, IC Insights has also increased its forecast for the O-S-D (optoelectronics, sensor/actuator, and discretes) market. In total, the semiconductor industry is now expected to register a 20 percent increase this year, up five percentage points from the 15 percent growth rate forecast in the Mid-Year Update. For 2017, IC Insights expects a whopping 77 percent increase in the DRAM ASP, which is forecast to propel the DRAM market to 74 percent growth this year, the largest growth rate since the 78 percent DRAM market increase in 1994. After including a 44 percent expected surge in the NAND flash market in 2017, including a 38 percent increase in NAND flash ASP this year, the total memory market is forecast to jump by 58 percent in 2017 with another 11% increase forecast for 2018. At USD 72.0 billion, the DRAM market is forecast to be by far the largest single product category in the semiconductor industry in 2017, exceeding the expected NAND flash market (USD 49.8 billion) by USD 22.2 billion this year. The DRAM and NAND flash segments are forecast to have a strong positive impact of 13 percentage points on total IC market growth this year. Excluding these memory segments, the IC industry is forecast to grow by 9 percent, less than half of the current total IC market growth rate forecast of 22 percent when including these memory markets.