SAN FRANCISCO -- Is SEMI's chip-equipment forecast for 2002 too optimistic? At least one investment firm believes so, saying that this sector will decline 15-20% in 2002 over 2001.
On Wednesday, the Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI) trade group projected that worldwide semiconductor equipment sales will decline by 3% in 2002 from this year, but the chip-making tool market will rebound and increase by 29% in 2003 and 23% in 2004 (see Dec. 4 story ).
The SEMI Consensus Forecast includes input from 60 of thetrade association's member companies in the United States,
Europe and Japan. Data was collected from surveys issued between October and November 2001.
Some analysts believe that SEMI's forecast is off the mark. The forecast "implies that 2002 is virtual mirror image of 2001," according to a report from Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown here today. "We believe this implied slope of recovery is much too bullish and continue to maintain our view that equipment revenue is likely to decline on the order of 15-20% in 2002 over 2001, with the year being extremely back-end loaded," the report said.
Among the key indicators are lackluster fab-utilization rates and possible declines in capital spending for 2002. "The last time we had fab-utilization so low was in 1990," said Tim Arcuri, who tracks the chip-equipment market for Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown in San Francisco.
"We need to see utilization rates at 70-75% before the cycle kicks in again," he said. "The earliest we could expect that is the end of next year."
Until then, chip makers will continue to resort to "technology buys" in terms of chip-equipment procurements, as opposed to "capacity buys," he added.
The firm also took a shot at SEMI's forecast for 2003 and 2004. "SEMI's forecast also indicated 29% growth year-over-year in 2003, and 23% in 2004," the report adds. "2004 is still approximately 10% shy of the peak run rate in the 2000 cycle."
Others were also pessimistic. The troubled semiconductor-equipment industry is expected to show some improvements over the next year, but the market will still decline from 8-13% in 2002 over 2001, according to a recent forecast from Dataquest Inc. of San Jose (see Nov. 12 story ).
Some are not so bleak. Originally, VSLI Research Inc. of San Jose projected that the semiconductor-equipment market would grow 10% in 2002. Now, VSLI Research projects only 3-4% growth in 2002, which is still a major improvement over this year.
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