Waiting for recovery - Semiconductor Trends 2002

Electronic News, May 6, 2002

They say the worst is behind us. That is, semi-conductor industry executives and analysts believe the bottom of the downturn has been reached and the industry is slowly making its way back to recovery. First-quarter earnings reports for the most part were negative year-over-year.

But many companies fared better sequentially, and CEOs pointed out that there are hopeful signs of an actual turnaround. Orders are increasing (though for some it's more a case that cancellations have slowed). Bookings have gone up, and some book-to bill ratios are greater than 1.0. And in many cases, backlogs have improved. Both analysts and company executives pin their hopes on the second half of this year for the upturn; however, they caution that this recovery will be slow in coming and not nearly as dramatic in nature as recoveries past.

In Electronic News' annual ranking of top semiconductor companies, many of the players moved up or down the charts. All companies saw their revenue figures plummet over the course of the year. As a group, the top 25's semiconductor sales dropped from more than $167 billion to just less than $112 billion this year.

Unchanged are the top two slots, held by Intel and Toshiba, respectively. NEC continued its tumble, going from the No. 3 slot to No. 6. Meanwhile, STMicroelectronics has taken over the No. 3 position, moving up from No. 6. Micron experienced the biggest drop--to No. 19, down from 10th last year.