More Bad News for Semiconductors
By William Trent, CFA of Stock Market Beat
There are many in the investment industry who believe that one needs close ties to industry participants in order to get the feel for how the market is moving before the crowd figures it out. We commented recently on Merrill Lynch’s semiconductor analyst lament that “There are too many investors taking too many airplanes to Taiwan and China, and the exercise is now undifferentiated and valueless.”
We actually have a somewhat different point of view, which is that those in the industry are often too close to the data to understand the big picture. We also have a corrolary that even if they do see the big picture they are likely to lie about gloss over it if it is negative. For example, a month ago we wrote that foundry UMC’s chairman and CEO expected capacity utilization to increase despite what we viewed as evidence to the contrary.
http://stockmarketbeat.com/blog1/
How quickly things change. Foundry utilization may drop in 4Q:
Foundry utilization rates may drop from the fourth quarter of this year through the first quarter of next year amid an inventory pileup at customers, according to foundry sources.
Although both Intel and AMD are offering aggressive price cuts, the sources said that the time it takes to clear out PC-use chip inventory will be longer than expected, which is causing the foundries to become more conservative towards demand in the third quarter.
Furthermore, the wireless slowdown we highlighted recently will take some time to work through the system, but appears to have solidly formed.
BenQ’s consolidated revenues in the second quarter fell 4.7% to NT$55.2 billion (US$1.7 billion) amid delayed shipments of some of its new handsets, according to today’s Chinese-language Economic Daily News (EDN).
At least some in the industry recognize the situation. Unlike some analysts, the folks at industry organization Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI) are predicting flat equipment sales in 2007. That would help soak up the excess capacity being built this year.
Following an anticipated decline of 11.3% in 2005, the equipment market will grow 18% to US$38.8 billion in 2006 but survey respondents see the market remaining flat in 2007 but expect double-digit growth over the following year to reach US$44.1 billion in 2008.
There are many in the investment industry who believe that one needs close ties to industry participants in order to get the feel for how the market is moving before the crowd figures it out. We commented recently on Merrill Lynch’s semiconductor analyst lament that “There are too many investors taking too many airplanes to Taiwan and China, and the exercise is now undifferentiated and valueless.”
We actually have a somewhat different point of view, which is that those in the industry are often too close to the data to understand the big picture. We also have a corrolary that even if they do see the big picture they are likely to lie about gloss over it if it is negative. For example, a month ago we wrote that foundry UMC’s chairman and CEO expected capacity utilization to increase despite what we viewed as evidence to the contrary.
http://stockmarketbeat.com/blog1/
How quickly things change. Foundry utilization may drop in 4Q:
Foundry utilization rates may drop from the fourth quarter of this year through the first quarter of next year amid an inventory pileup at customers, according to foundry sources.
Although both Intel and AMD are offering aggressive price cuts, the sources said that the time it takes to clear out PC-use chip inventory will be longer than expected, which is causing the foundries to become more conservative towards demand in the third quarter.
Furthermore, the wireless slowdown we highlighted recently will take some time to work through the system, but appears to have solidly formed.
BenQ’s consolidated revenues in the second quarter fell 4.7% to NT$55.2 billion (US$1.7 billion) amid delayed shipments of some of its new handsets, according to today’s Chinese-language Economic Daily News (EDN).
At least some in the industry recognize the situation. Unlike some analysts, the folks at industry organization Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI) are predicting flat equipment sales in 2007. That would help soak up the excess capacity being built this year.
Following an anticipated decline of 11.3% in 2005, the equipment market will grow 18% to US$38.8 billion in 2006 but survey respondents see the market remaining flat in 2007 but expect double-digit growth over the following year to reach US$44.1 billion in 2008.
posted by douglas mcintyre at 8:53 AM
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