Eastern promise

Although this is up from $76.6bn in 2007, previous years’ growth have always seen double digit growth. China’s fables ic industry is expected to perform better, expanding by 12.3% to reach $3.5bn in 2008, up from $3.1bn in 2007. Vincent Gu, China research analyst at iSuppli, said: “This growth in fabless IC revenue is being driven by domestic sales of wireless and consumer electronics products, rather than by exports. Moreover, the Summer Olympic events in Beijing and other Chinese cities this year encouraged the release of new mobile handsets supporting the 3G, Digital Terrestrial Multimedia Broadcast and China Mobile Multimedia Broadcasting standards, boosting sales of associated ICs.” China’s domestic market situation improved in 2008 despite regulatory restrictions and an incomplete supply chain. Popular applications supporting new domestic standards will appear in 2009 as its industrial ecosystems mature. Although there is substantial economic uncertainty, iSupplie predicts continued revenue growth in 2009.