IC Insights: China's demand for pure-play wafer services is strong, and sales will increase by 26%

IC Insights released an analysis report on global IC manufacturers and the regional market sales ratios of pure-play foundries on the 13th, predicting that China's market share will reach 22% in 2020.

The report analyzes that the Sino-US trade war in 2019 slowed down China's economic development, but its pure wafer foundry market share still increased by 2% to 21%. In addition, despite the impact of the epidemic in the first half of this year, China's pure wafer foundry market share in 2020 will still increase by 1% to 22%, an increase of 17% since data was collected in 2010.

Pure wafer foundry market sales share in various regions around the world in 2020 Source: IC Insights

IC Insights pointed out that the development of chip design companies such as HiSilicon Semiconductor has expanded China's demand for pure wafer services. While global sales fell last year, China's sales reached US$11.8 billion, an increase of 10%. IC Insights predicts that China's sales will increase by 26% this year.

The report shows that TSMC's sales in mainland China jumped 59% in 2018, and then increased by 17% to US$6.9 billion in 2019. It can be said that almost all of TSMC's sales growth last year came from the mainland Chinese market, and the share of mainland China in the company's total sales more than doubled from 9% in 2016 to 20% in 2019.

In addition, SMIC's sales in mainland China are expected to grow 32% in 2020, which is a big change from the -7% the company's data statistics showed in 2019. 

In addition, UMC's Fab 12X plant in Xiamen currently produces 18,700 300mm wafers per month, making it the fastest growing pure-play foundry in China last year, and it is expected to reach 25,000 wafers per month by mid-2021.