LONDON — Long-time analyst of semiconductor market statistics Mike Cowan has revised his 2009 semiconductor annual market estimate to $183.99 billion, equivalent to a market contraction of 26 percent, a slight improvement on his previous forecast that year-on-year decline in shipments would be 26.8 percent.
Cowan is also predicting that April 2009 sales will reach $13.37billion, which represents a year-on-year monthly sales growth of -29.4 percent , again a slight improvement of March's result (-31.5 percent) and also slight better than 2009's YTD sales growth of -29.9 percent.
Cowan, who works with actual monthly global semiconductor sales numbers gathered and published by the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics organization, uses linear regression analysis of historical data to produce a forecast of worldwide semiconductor sales looking forward over the next five quarters.
For the quarters from Q1 2009 to Q1 2010, Cowan now suggests that sales will be $44.02 billion, $44.57 billion, $47.94 billion, $47.45 billion and $45.28 billion. This equates to year-on-year percentage growth rates of -29.9, -31.1, -30.4, -9.1 and 2.8.
Cowan still believes the chip market will not return to year-on-year growth until Q1 2010.
"Additionally, the model has "revealed" its first glimpse of 2Q10 sales forecast estimate. The corresponding year-on-year sales growth (2Q10 versus 2Q09) is strongly positive (at +14.4 percent) indicating the start of a 2010 positive turn around for the industry compared to what the model is predicting for the remaining three quarters of this year," Cowan says in a note.
Estimated second quarter 2010 sales are put at $50.99 billion, with sales of $96.27 billion for the second half of next year.
These estimates are broadly in line with predictions earlier this week from another market tracker, iSuppli, that signals the industry has entered into the "recovery phase" and more solid chip pricing.
"This month's momentum indicator moving into positive territory bodes well relative to a rather slow but positive (albeit extremely small) recovery in sales over the near-term," adds Cowan.
