South Africa
Altron announced its interim results for the six months ending 31 August 2012. Revenue increased by 11% when compared to the prior interim period, to R12,8 billion, and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) decreased 9% to R852 million while headline earnings per share reduced by 2% to 81 cents per share.
Overseas
Business
French newspaper Les Echos has reported that troubled joint venture ST-Ericsson has appointed US bank J.P. Morgan to help it sort out the financial mess the company finds itself in. ST-Ericsson is recording losses of around $250 million per quarter and owes $1,2 billion in debts.
Industry
The Semiconductor Industry Association announced that worldwide sales of semiconductors reached $24,30 billion for the month of August 2012, a slight increase of 0,1% from the previous month when sales were $24,27 billion and a 3,2% decrease from the August 2011 total of $25,1 billion. Year-to-date sales reached $189,46 billion in August 2012, down 4,6% compared to the same stage last year.
The number of devices that can connect to the Internet is forecast to increase to 9,6 billion by the end of 2012, according to IMS Research. The company, which tracks the installed base of Internet capable equipment, believes that the third wave of connected device growth is accelerating, and this will drive further growth in the connected device market, leading to its forecast of 28 billion Internet connected devices by the end of 2020. Approximately 75% of the 9,6 billion number is made up from what are considered ‘existing connected devices’ today, ie, fixed and mobile communications, computers and consumer electronics. However, these segments are only projected to account for half of the total installed base by 2020, as Internet connectivity becomes more common in the medical, industrial and automotive sectors.
Although it is projecting an overall IC market decline of 1% in 2012, IC Insights predicts that nine product categories are expected to show positive growth, led by three categories related to the telecom industry. As shown in the table below, the Wired Telecom – Application-Specific Analog segment is forecast to be the strongest-growing product segment in 2012 with a 25% increase in market size, followed by the Wired Telecom – and Wireless Telecom – Special Purpose Logic/MPR categories. See the table below.
The EDA Consortium announced that Electronic Design Automation (EDA) industry revenue increased 10,8% for the second quarter of 2012 to $1593,0 million, compared to $1438,1 million in the same quarter last year. Sequential EDA revenue for the latest quarter increased 3,2% compared to the first quarter of 2012, while the four-quarters moving average, which compares the most recent four quarters to the prior four quarters, increased by 12,0%.
IPC has belatedly released a report showing that worldwide production of printed circuit boards (PCBs) experienced real growth of just 2,4% in 2011 to more than $59 billion. Approximately 2600 PCB fabricators produced an estimated value of $59,138 billion in PCBs in 2011. PCB production value declined 11,3% in the Americas, but grew 1,3% in Europe and 3,6% in Asia; Asia now accounts for 89% of world PCB production. The fastest-growing product categories in 2011 were metal core PCBs, high-performance rigid PCBs and IC substrates. Rigid flex and CEM-3 production declined in 2011.
Reported incidents of counterfeit electronic component parts this year are maintaining the record pace set in 2011, highlighting the need for continued vigilance and improved detection and avoidance measures, according to information and analytics provider IHS. Counterfeit incident reports from the beginning of the year through the end of August averaged 107,3 per month, up slightly from 107,1 in 2011. As shown in the graph above, on a sequential 12-month basis, a total of 1336 separate verified counterfeit-part incidents have been made for transactions involving a minimum of 834 079 purchased parts. These figures are considered conservative because purchased parts reflect only a subset of all reported incidents.
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