2010 proved to be a landmark year for semiconductor distribution in EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) for a variety of reasons: first and foremost, the distribution industry outgrew the market by far.
In Q4/2010, the growth rate ‘flattened’ to 49,8% and 1,47 billion Euro sales. But for the full year the industry delivered a 53,6% growth to a record sales of 5,9 billion Euro, according to DMASS (Distributors’ and Manufacturers’ Association of Semiconductor Specialists) – an all-time record since its existence. The second reason to celebrate was the 20th anniversary of DMASS. DMASS was formed in 1989 and in the summer of 1990 produced the first semiconductor distribution statistics. And since 2000, DMASS shares the overall results with the public.
Georg Steinberger, permanent chairman of DMASS, commented on the development: “Our industry not only compensated the dent of the global bank crisis of 2008 and its aftermath – it crushed the record year 2007 to bits and outdid the overall market by approximately 15%. It seems that selling and buying through distribution in Europe has finally reached a well-deserved critical recognition. For 2011, we are cautiously optimistic.”
From a regional perspective, 2010 also proved to be a watershed year. While Eastern Europe (84,3%), Israel (65,2%), Austria (62,1%), Switzerland (57,2%) and Germany (56,4%) grew over-proportionally, all other countries remained below the 50% mark (exception: Sweden with 67%). Specifically Iberia (26%) and France (39,6%) experienced disappointing growth, relatively speaking. For the entire year, Germany achieved sales of 2 billion Euro, Eastern Europe 730 million Euro, Italy 617 million Euro, the UK and Ireland 503 million Euro, Nordic 502 million Euro and finally France 450 million Euro. The single highest growth happened in ‘Emerging Eastern Europe’ with 92% to almost 280 million Euro.
Georg Steinberger: “The clear trend of Central and Eastern Europe taking the lead in the booming distribution environment continues. While Western European economies still suffer loss of industrial production (UK, France) or increasingly start seeing it (Italy and Spain), Germany and the Central East European countries like Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary hold the fort. And Russia is on a run of its own, it seems.”
Product-wise, the growth split between technologies for 2010 was interesting, from a quarterly development as well as from the end result. Sensors (68%), power (66%), programmable logic (62%) and analog (58%) grew over-proportionally, while the rest developed ‘ok.’ Specifically, optoelectronics (47%) with its hype on high-brightness LEDs, and MOS micro as the second largest product area after analog (49%) did not quite perform at the same level as the aforementioned growth leaders.
Steinberger concludes: “You can always find fault with something, even in positive times like 2010. So in principal we have to be happy with an outstanding year by all standards. In DMASS’ 20th year of existence, the distribution market turned into the stronghold for the European electronics industry. Distribution is a local business, serving local customers and local interests – and will always be. No distributor will move to Asia because it is a better and less costly place.”
Regarding the 20th DMASS anniversary, Steinberger observed: “We transformed from a semi-private data collection club to a viable and credible data source in the European industry. Our detailed view of the market place is unmatched by any market researcher of association, and considering the global interest we receive every quarter, DMASS has become the reference point for distributors and manufacturers around the globe.”
For more information visit www.dmass.com
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