IC Insights: '05 Cap Spending to Drop 10%

A recovery may begin for chipmakers sometime next year, but that may not be the case for capital equipment vendors.

Market research firm IC Insights anticipates that semiconductor capital spending will decline 10 percent next year. The company recently released its latest monthly update

Similar to 2004, IC Insights believes that the semiconductor companies’ early 2005 reported spending budgets will end up being close to the actual 2005/2004 capital spending results.

In McClean Report, released in January of this year, IC Insights forecast 2004/2003 total semiconductor capital spending to grow 48 percent year over year; in its mid-year update it revised that to 53 percent, and says now that the actual number should come in close to that figure. That would place 2004's capital spending total at approximately $45.4 billion.

In years past, particularly in the anomalous 1999/2000, companies' actual spending diverged greatly from announced budgets. But gun-shy chipmakers have resulted in a much closer correlation recently between actual spending and announced budgets, IC Insights observed. It anticipates this continuing in 2005.

Recent comments from some of the large semiconductor vendors are beginning to support IC Insights 2005 capital spending forecast, the market research firm noted. European chip giant STMicroelectronics announced capital spending budget for next year is down some 25 percent to $1.5 billion, while No. 2 foundry United Microelectronics Corp.'s announced budget for next year is down 29 percent from this year at $1.5 billion also.

While most of the recently released 2005 semiconductor capital spending budgets are relatively gloomy, IC Insights observed that top three spenders in 2004, Samsung, Intel, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., have yet to announce their 2005 capital spending intentions. Between the three of them, they represent approximately one quarter of total industry spending.

Is Inventory Correction Nearing an End?

As for the chip industry itself, IC Insights anticipates that it will finish 2004 with 29 percent market growth. And the inventory burn continues; for both standard analog and general purpose logic, IC Insights believes that the three-month average unit shipments in December will be very close to the levels of Q1 2003, which was just prior to the recent upturn.

The market research firm notes that over the past 21 years Q2/Q3 total IC unit volume shipments have declined only three times: 1985 (-8 percent), 2001 (-4 percent), and 2004 (-2 percent). With 1985 and 2001 being the worst downturn years in the history of the IC industry, it was extremely unusual to encounter a 3Q/2Q IC unit decline in the cyclical peak growth year of 2004, IC Insights said.

 Overall, IC Insights believes that the current inventory adjustment is actually healthy for the IC industry heading into 2005. The Q2 overshoot above the IC unit shipment trend line was only 12.8 percent, compared to the 21.5 percent registered in Q2 of 2000, according to the market research firm.

Moreover, IC unit shipments in Q4 of this year are likely to be very close to the long-term trend line, IC Insights said. Because of these factors, the market research firm believes the 2005 IC market slowdown will only feel a slight impact from inventory adjustments, and that macroeconomic factors will be the key consideration for the industry next year.