The Distributors' and Manufacturers' Association of Semiconductor Specialists (DMASS) say their members experienced the steepest sales decline in the organisation's history in Q209, recording sales down 32.6% on Q208.
In Q209 DMASS members had collective sales of €869m and H109 sales of €1.86m which was a decline of 29.2% on H108.
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"Taking into account the booking situation of 2008 and early 2009, it was clear that Q2 would end in a disaster across all regions and product groups," says Georg Steinberger, Chairman of DMASS, "our hopes for the remainder of the year, however, are less pessimistic. Book-to-Bill ratios in July were steadily high and have created some cautious confidence in the return of the market. In some cases we even expect availability bottlenecks. It will take some years, though, to get back to record sales levels of early 2007, which were 40% higher than the last quarter."
Of the major regions, Italy (-40.3%) and Germany (-34.3%) were affected most severely, while France (-27%) and the UK (-28%) did considerably "less badly". Switzerland ( 38.4%) and Eastern Europe (-36.6%) stayed below average while Benelux (-23.6%), Iberia (-28.7%), Austria (-29.6%) and the Rest of Europe (-17.9%) did better than average. In absolute numbers, the German market ended in Q2 at 282 Million Euro, Italy at 99 Million Euro, the UK at 80 Million Euro and France at 78 Million Euro.
"The crisis goes through all regions", says Steinberger, "it is significant to see that lower cost production regions like Eastern Europe suffered more than the core regions, meaning that the amplitude of market swings on average is much higher the further down you go in the electronics production food chain. Best example for this thesis is Israel which in the first half of 2009 only declined 21%, 8% less than the EMEA average!"
All major product groups declined massively in Q2/2009 compared to Q2/2008. Only Memories (-18.2%) and Programmable Logic (-25%) came in above average, all others either declined between average and 47% (Sensors). Analogue and MOS Micro Logic, by far the biggest product groups, declined by 30.5% and 37% respectively to 244 Million € and 192 Million € respectively. Among the biggest losers were Power (-40.4%), Discretes (-38.2%) and Standard Logic (-39.1%). Just one single product group showed some steadiness - Flash Memories only declined by 2.4%.
"Looking at the products there is not a single area without negative news, not a single product or application that seems to beat the market odds", says Steinberger, "with the summer quarter having started positively, we hope the relief continues throughout the fall to halt further market deterioration. The European electronics industry still offers many opportunities, specifically for distribution."