European semiconductor distributors saw a fall in sales in the first quarter, according to DMASS, the distributor and manufacturer industry body.

Revenues in the European distribution market of €1.38bn in Q1 were 7.9% down on teh same quarter a year ago.

Sequentially (against Q4/2007), sales were up 12.3%.

"We expected a drop in Q1 as we were up against the all-time-high quarter. Unless something severe happens - like a sinking demand in volumes - the cycle should ease out over the course of the year," said Ian Bass, chairman of DMASS.

"We are still confident that the European market has a big manufacturing potential and therefore an upside specifically for distribution," said Bass.

The first quarter looked quite similar in Western Europe and much more positive in Eastern Europe. Of the bigger sales regions, the steepest decline against last year’s Q1 occurred in the UK which was 22.1% down at €117m, followed by France 11.4% down and Italy 9.8% down.

Germany was also 7.2% down at €461m.

"Of concern is without doubt the ongoing weakness of the markets in the UK and France. While Italy and Germany recovered with +22% and +20% respectively against the Q4/2007 figure, the UK (and Ireland) only managed to exceed Q4/2007 by 2% and France by 12%. However, from a design perspective, those countries continue to be strong,” said Bass.
 
Discrete components (including power) declined only by -3.2% to €241m, microprocessors, controllers and DSPs went down by -5.9% to €322m and analogue components lost 6.7% against Q1/2007.

All other areas lost over-proportionally, with programmable logic (-14.1%) and logic (-14.2%) leading the product decline. On the positive side, IGBTs were up 42% and DRAMs up 11.9%.