The current analog IC market is like a roller coaster

Translated from EEtimes

Industrial applications, smartphones and other consumer electronic devices, plus automobiles, are driving the shrinking analog IC market. According to IC Insights, the US-China trade friction is one of the reasons for the decline in global sales. In some regions, especially Europe, the automotive industry is buffering the sharp decline in the analog market.

The analyst said market leader Texas Instruments (TI) still has a firm grip on the analog chip market, accounting for 19% of global sales. This is 1 percentage point higher than last year and exceeds the combined market share of rivals Analog Devices (10%) and Infineon (7%).

Microchip was the only company to achieve annual sales and market share gains among IC Insights’ top 10 analog integrated circuit suppliers. The Arizona chipmaker’s revenue grew 10% year over year to $1.53 billion, and its market share rose by one percentage point.

IC Insights noted that the sales and market share gains were attributed to Microchip’s acquisition of Microsemi in 2018, “which provided a nice boost to its analog circuit sales throughout 2019.”

In other regions, Infineon remains the largest supplier of analog chips in Europe thanks to its strength in automotive, power management and industrial sales. Automotive accounted for 44% of Infineon's sales in 2019, followed by power management (30%). Among all categories, Infineon's analog circuit sales fell one percentage point to $3.75 billion in 2019.

Skyworks Solutions, Maxim and ON Semi all saw their sales decline the most last year, with annual sales of analog devices falling by 13%.

IC Insights noted that the decline in performance of Skyworks, ranked fifth, was mainly attributed to the continued sluggishness of the U.S. market, and that the chipmaker's manufacturing customers "have a large amount of business in China." Most of the companies produce smartphones and other communication equipment and computing components.

As trade relations deteriorate, market watchers note that Skyworks has increased its investments in analog chipsets in anticipation of the launch of 5G smartphones and other infrastructure applications based on the next-generation wireless standard.

Meanwhile, Analog Devices (ADI), ranked second, said it is focusing on edge computing and "sensor-to-cloud" applications for industrial IoT applications. Industrial applications accounted for half of ADI's total sales of $5.16 billion in 2019.