A rare decline in IC unit shipments in 2019 expected to be followed by another drop in 2020.

Using its “baseline” assumptions shown in the April Update to the 2020 edition of The McClean Report—A Complete Analysis and Forecast of the Integrated Circuit Industry (MR20), IC Insights forecasts that worldwide IC unit shipments will register their first-ever back-to-back annual decline in 2020.

From 2013 through 2018, IC unit shipments were on a respectable growth path with an 8% increase logged in 2013, a 9% jump registered in 2014, a 5% increase displayed in 2015, a 7% increase shown in 2016, a double-digit growth rate of 15% in 2017, and a 10% increase in 2018.  In contrast to the double-digit increases in 2017 and 2018, 2019 marked only the fifth time in the history of the IC industry that IC unit shipments registered a decline (Figure 1).

Figure 1

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Coronavirus pandemic further reduces worldwide GDP and IC market outlooks.

When 2020 started, global economic conditions pointed to single-digit percentage sales growth in the IC market after it fell by 15% in 2019, based on worldwide market data compiled by IC Insights for the 2020 edition of The McClean Report—A Complete Analysis and Forecast of the Integrated Circuit Industry (MR20).  However, the world abruptly changed in 1Q20 with the rapid outbreak of the Covid-19 virus, which shut down nearly all countries and paralyzed global markets beginning in March 2020.

Figure 1 depicts the changes made to IC Insights’ 2020 total IC market forecasts as compared to the original MR20 forecast presented in January of this year.

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