Over the next few years, growth in the global semiconductor industry will be driven by demand for consumer electronics. That is according to Global Industry Analysts (GIA), which said that it expects to see the value of the semiconductor market reach $372.2 billion by 2015. This growth, GIA said, will largely come through the continued success of devices such as smartphones and personal computers, especially notebooks and tablets.
The semiconductor industry is, of course, at the centre of the consumer electronics industry and despite ongoing economic troubles in most of its major markets, the sale of smart devices appear to be resistant to the residual impact of the downturn.
"With most of the end-use industries recovering from the impact of recession in 2010, the global semiconductors market too started to post considerable growth in volume and value sales," the report said. "The semiconductor industry got a new lease of life post recession with key end-use industries starting to replenish inventories."
Recovery in enterprise IT infrastructure spending "unleashed huge pent-up demand for semiconductors in the computing end-use sector", according to GIA, which observed that companies have recently started restoring postponed investments.
One of the main reasons for the impressive growth of the semiconductor industry lies in companies exploiting mobile technology to make the most of their potential. Meanwhile, the research firm said that increased demand for ASICs and NAND flash memory devices will stem from growing adoption of tablet PCs and smartphones, both of which have penetrated mainstream culture over the last few years.
GIA said that future growth in the semiconductors market "will be driven by mobile and wireless segments, led by huge demand and widespread proliferation of devices such as smartphones, tablet PCs, GPS enabled devices, handheld video game players, solid state drives and e-book readers".
And over the next few years, GIA predicted that new opportunities from the automotive electronics segment will increase demand for semiconductors.