Industrial electronics market down 5.4% in 2012

The latest figures show that the eight leading suppliers of industrial electronics suffered revenue declines last year, reflecting weak conditions for the beleaguered market. Along with two gainers in the top 10, the eight collectively accounted for revenue amounting to $12.19billion, or 40.4% of the overall industrial electronics semiconductor space valued at $30.15bn. The field was led by Texas Instruments, which managed to stay on top despite deteriorated revenue. Only two companies enjoyed revenue increases. Jacobo Carrasco-Heres, analyst for industrial electronics at IHS, attributed the contraction to a slowdown in worldwide markets where the chips are used, such as in security, test and measurement, motor drives, metering, medical electronics and renewable energies. He commented: "The anaemic performance of these segments, in turn, dragged down the suppliers making the chips, resulting in 2012 revenue losses among the top eight that ranged from 0.7% to 20.4%.