“Our outlook for 2017 was rather modest, given that there were not too many growth signs in the major regions of Europe and considering the macro-economic dangers looming all around us,” said Georg Steinberger, chairman of DMASS.
“So, the record quarter came as a bit of a surprise. As to the reason, all industry segments seem to contribute, from automotive to industrial. The bookings are also quite strong, lead-times of various product families are moving out, prices are increasing. All in all, 2017 could bring a strong growth throughout the year.”
Eastern Europe and countries like Israel, Russia and Turkey led the growth, with Poland becoming the fifth largest country in semiconductor distribution in Europe. Of the major regions, Germany grew below average, but UK, France and Italy remained in the low single-digits. France, at +3.8% to €152million, overtook the UK at +3.3% to €151m.
“Over the next 12 to 18 months, we expect some serious channel shifts – distribution to direct, but also in the other direction – that could influence the overall development of the distribution market,” commented Steinberger.
According to DMASS, last quarter showed a general uptick in distribution friendly products like memories, analogue, MOS micro and logic, followed by power. On the negative side, programmable logic shrunk, discrete and standard logic grew very moderately, and sensors and opto grew below average.
“Rising stars like LEDs or programmable logic have not participated in this overall upswing last quarter, despite the fact that these technologies appear in many industry segments. It remains to be seen how these fields develop over the course of the year,” Steinberger concluded.