EU semi sales 'back on track'

According to DMASS (Distributors' and Manufacturers' Association of Semiconductor Specialists), Q4 sales were up 11.1% to reach €1.41billion. Total distribution sales in 2013 were €5.87bn. DMASS chairman Georg Steinberger said: "After a disappointing and sluggish 2012, the return to normal growth in 2013 came as a relief to the whole industry. "Unfortunately, we experienced a further decline of average selling prices, as the over-proportional growth in volume confirms. On the positive side, very strong order books suggest that 2014 will be a healthy year, provided no major disasters occur." Regionally, DMASS says there were 'no real surprises' in 2013. Sales in Germany grew by 11.5% to reach €433million, while Italian distribution sales increased by 14.1% to €130m. France saw sales increase by a whopping 17.9% to €109m, while the UK trailed the behind the major EU regions with an increase of just 8% to €121m. Product wise, the highest performing product segments were DRAM (40.4%), 32bit MCUs (35.7%) and NAND Flash (33.9%). Programmable logic remained the weakest spot with 4.1% growth, followed by discretes (6.95) and analogue (9.8%). The only major product segment to suffer a slight decline was sensors. Steinberger continued: "Sequential quarterly developments show a very disparate and rarely consistent pattern, so let's focus on the annual picture. "All areas recovered nicely, except two major ones: programmable logic and MOS Micro, the latter one having only remained positive due to high end MCUs. So what is wrong here? The conclusion we came to is the increased price pressure. We hope this pattern is going to change during 2014."