Situation of the French semiconductor market in the 1ˢᵗ quarter of 2021

Paris, June 4, 2021 – The growth of the French semiconductor market continued to accelerate sharply in the first quarter of 2021, according to Acsiel Alliance Electronique, s ‘rising to 24% compared to the previous quarter. This follows 13% sequential growth in the fourth quarter of 2020.

Reported for the first quarter of 2020, growth is 10% while the market was still down -8% year-on-year in the fourth quarter. The French market has once again crossed the 500 million euro quarterly mark for the first time since 2016.

For direct sales to end customers, sequential growth was 28%, primarily due to strong demand from the IT segment for cyclical reasons. The Industrial and Smart card segments were also very favored with growth above 40%. The Telecom segment, whose weight remains very low in France, has seen renewed growth over the past year. Despite strong demand, sales to the Automotive segment only increased by 2%, notably due to the shortage of components. However, after having strongly restarted in the second half of 2020, this market has returned to a level at the start of 2021 that it had not reached since 2016. In contrast to this very dynamic recovery situation, the Aeronautics market /Space/Defense, which is by nature subject to significant quarterly order variations, experienced a pronounced decline in the first quarter after a record fourth quarter. Remember that the main drivers of growth in the fourth quarter were precisely direct sales to the Automotive and Aeronautics/Space/Defense segments.

By product family, the growth in direct sales is largely linked to demand in the IT segment with memories and MOS Micros but obviously the latter also benefited from growth in Industrial and Smart cards. While the market for Discrete circuits (power transistors, diodes, rectifiers, thyristors, etc.) also increased in the first quarter although to a lesser extent, all other product families saw their sales decline.

Distribution sales recorded sequential growth of 16%, twice as high as in the fourth quarter, and represented 26% of the total market. According to Acsiel, around 60% of these sales are intended for the Industrial sector and 20% for the Automotive sector.

Change by quarter of the French market since 2010, in index, in annual moving average – Source #ACSIEL