However, people are not good enough to expect something unexpected in 2017. One is that silicon prices have been declining for the last ten years and this year they have started to rise and are out of stock. The other is that memory prices have entered a soaring cycle, leading to market analysis Companies have revised their forecasts one after another, with WSTS revised up 17% in August and IC Insight revised up 22%.
Since the market analysts' predictions allow multiple corrections as the market changes, their final predictions are almost always correct, and obviously it is very difficult to truly predict the industry's posture and guide the operation of the business.
China's semiconductor industry and the global unsynchronized .In 2017, the growth of the global semiconductor industry exceeded most people's expectations, especially in the booming memory industry, it holds the same golden rice bowl.
IC Insight forecasts a 77% ASP ASP increase for DRAM in 2017, resulting in a 74% increase in DRAM sales this year, the highest level since 78% growth in 1994. ASPs for NAND flash memory have grown 38% Resulting in a 44% increase in sales in 2017. Global memory growth is expected to be 58% in 2017 and another 11% in 2018.
IC Insights estimates DRAM sales will reach 72 billion U.S. dollars in 2017, making it the largest-selling product in the semiconductor industry this year, surpassing the flash market (49.8 billion U.S. dollars) by about 22 billion U.S. dollars. Due to the strong memory growth this year , Semiconductor sales in 2017 increased 22%, of which memory accounted for 13 percentage points, if excluding the growth rate of DRAM and FLASH, semiconductor sales in 2017 grew by only 9%, clearly less than half of the overall sales growth of 22%.
The face of the global semiconductor industry, high-growth trend, the development of China's semiconductor industry appears to have no linkage effect.It is inevitable analysis of the reasons, because this year's main growth driver from memory, and China's semiconductor industry chain, memory has just begun to layout, to There may not be any big sales in 2019. In addition, from the global foundry's point of view, this year's situation is not as good as last year's.
Therefore, at the recent SMIC Q3 lawsuit, SMIC executives also admitted that its gross profit margin of Q3 was 23%, down from 25.8% of Q2 and 30% of Q3 of the same period of last year, mainly due to the commencement of construction The rate is low, only 83.9%.
SMIC is currently embracing two transformation phases: the first one is to manage the transition, just as the industry knows, with Mr. Leong Mengsong joining; the second one is strategic transformation, which should make the product line more extensive and at the same time make great efforts to develop the advanced Technology process technology to narrow the gap with international counterparts.
In addition SMIC as the industrial environment changes occurred in the following three changes, the first is the development of many new manufacturing processes, there is a production ramp process, apparently this will affect its gross profit margin; the second is the silicon Chip foundry average ex-factory price last year, the entire market has been in a state of shortage, support prices higher, and this year the entire foundry industry did not last year's boom, resulting in an average ex-factory price lower than the same period last year; the third is SMIC's Capital expenditures have increased, although some of these expenditures have been directly translated into productivity, yet depreciation has also started to take place, leading to a drop in gross profit margins.
SMIC makes timely strategic readjustments and actively moves toward marketization, fully demonstrating its upward vitality and allowing the industry to see new hope.
China's chip manufacturing industry can not maintain an average annual growth rate of 20%, and some ups and downs are completely normal.At the present stage all kinds of feasible methods are being promoted and practiced, from which a great deal of experience and lessons have been summed up.To strengthen R & D is fundamental, It is 'the forefathers of trees, descendants cool' thing, despite the investment risk, long cycle, but only the fruits of research and development can really fall in their own hands, there is no shortcut to go.
If there is any other "magic recipe" available, as SMIC chairman Zhou Zi learn at the 30th anniversary of Walden International, the key to the success of the business, 10% is funding, 30% is a good team, 60 % Is to persevere, and then persevere in determination and confidence.