The Semiconductor Industry Association, known as SIA for its acronym in English, has confirmed two important data. The first is that global semiconductor sales reached a new record in 2021, generating a total amount of 555,900 million dollars, a figure that represents a growth of 26.2% (annual). The second piece of information is a growth forecast for 2022 which, in theory, will be 8.8%.
The good results within the world of semiconductors are not a surprise, after all, 2021 was marked by a huge demand for chips and a marked shortage of them. Throughout that year, the main players in the sector tried to improve production and accelerate the implementation of new tools in order to meet the needs of their customers, a reality that will not change in 2022since the demand continues to grow, and to satisfy it, a greater production capacity is needed.
However, we must bear in mind that it is not possible to increase the production capacity of semiconductors overnight. It is a very complex process that can take from several months to a year to begin to bear fruit.so it is likely that a good part of the reinforcement measures that were adopted in 2021 to improve production will not begin to bear fruit until the first or second quarter of this year.
John Neuffer, CEO of the Semiconductor Industry Association, commented that in 2022 there will be slower growth, but in any case the data that is being handled is very positive for the sector. He also confirmed that 2021 was the first year, since 2018, in which the sector achieved exceed the figure of 1 billion chips sold, or what is the same, an American trillion.
On the other hand, the executive has also explained that, although giants such as TSMC, Samsung and Intel have announced investments worth tens of billions of dollars in new factories, in the end digitization will continue to raise demand to levels never seen before. This will, in his opinion, speed up and strengthen the construction plans for new factories. What can we say, there is no doubt that silicon is “the gold of the 21st century”.
In total, during 2021 a whopping 1.15 billion semiconductors. Chips for the automotive world saw the biggest growth, along with other semiconductors that are poised to overcome marked heat changes and other environmental and physical challenges. Sales in that sector rose 34% compared to the previous year. China repeated as the largest market within the world of semiconductors, with total sales worth 192.5 billion dollars in 2021, a figure that, according to the SIA, represents a growth of 27.1% compared to the previous year.
