Semiconductor revenues projected to drop 3.6% next year

Revenues for the global semiconductor market is forecast to total $596 billion in 2023, down from the previous forecast of $623 billion according to numbers from Gartner.

According to the latest forecasts from Gartner, though this year the global semiconductor market is apparently set to grow 4% and total $618 billion this year, in 2023 revenue is projected to decline 3.6% – which the analysts attributes to oversupply due to the ‘worsening economic situation’.

Gartner surmises weakness in the consumer side of the market is being driven largely by the decline in disposable income caused by rising inflation and interest rates, and that people are increasingly likely to spend their disposable income on travel, leisure and entertainment rather than new tech. Meanwhile B2b segments such as enterprise networking, enterprise compute, industrial, medical and commercial transportation have apparently remained fairly resilient.

The memory market isn’t having a great time of it either we’re told – and is currently ‘witnessing faltering demand, swollen inventories and customers pressing for considerably lower prices.’ Because of this Gartner thinks the memory market will remain flat in 2022 and is forecast to decline 16.2% in revenue in 2023.

“The short-term outlook for semiconductor revenue has worsened,” said Richard Gordon, Practice Vice President at Gartner. “Rapid deterioration in the global economy and weakening consumer demand will negatively impact the semiconductor market in 2023. The relative strength in the enterprise-driven markets comes from strategic investments by corporations that are looking to strengthen their infrastructure to continue supporting their work from home workforce, business expansion plans and ongoing digitalization strategies

“While the deterioration in the macroeconomic environment will weaken consumer demand, we expect relatively better semiconductor consumption from business investments. Consequently, markets such as industrial, telecom infrastructure and data centre will be less impacted by consumer sentiment and spending in the short term.”

You can probably get used to predictions involving bad news of some description effecting lots of areas of the tech economy as we enter 2023, and indeed many other market areas in general as the ‘worsening economic situation’, as Gartner puts it, continues.

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