Gartner: Chip market to drop 24 percent this year

Research firm Gartner predicts the semiconductor industry will be hit hard by the harsh economic climate. Analysts estimate global semiconductor revenue will fall 24 percent to $194.5 billion this year. Two and a half months ago Gartner forecast a 16 percent fall in the 2009 chipset market, but things are looking less rosy today. Gartner believes the semiconductor industry will start recovering in 2010, but claims it will take until 2013 to reach the same revenue as in 2008.

Gartner forecast the market could fall at least 17 percent in the first quarter, but said the drop could be much deeper.

"We believe that the financial crisis has reset the semiconductor market," Bryan Lewis, research vice president at Gartner, said in a statement on Wednesday.

"After the 2001 recession, in which semiconductor sales plummeted by a record 32.5 percent, semiconductor sales took about four years to get back to 2000 levels."

Gartner forecast the semiconductor industry would bounce back starting next year, but reach its 2008 level only in 2013.