One of the factors that helped to stabilize the average selling prices was the strong demand for PCs and mobile phones during the second half of 2003. During 2003 PC shipments reached 152 million units, and mobile phones 530 million units.
China is becoming an increasingly important driver of the semiconductor market--it is the largest consumer of mobile phones and the second-largest consumer of PCs. The country now has its own semiconductor companies, which will affect the competitive landscape for original equipment manufacturers, original design manufacturers, and semiconductor suppliers over the next five years, IDC says.Altough there is a worldwide strong growth there will be a shakeout in certain sectors according to IDC.
Chinese semiconductor demand currently represents over one-quarter of the $60 billion total for the Asia-Pacific region and will account for almost half of the entire region by the end of 2008, IDC says.
Semiconductor design houses and fabless wired communication chip suppliers will be the most likely to consolidate, with flash memory, analog, and wireless semiconductor vendors also affected, IDC says.Source: PC World