Paris, September 27, 2023 – The French semiconductor market recorded a decline of -4% in the second quarter compared to the previous quarter (which slightly revised downwards, to €717 million). According to ACSIEL Alliance Electronique, sales in Q2 represented an amount of €689 million, representing growth of 13% compared to the second quarter of 2022. This marks a trend of slowing growth year-on-year since it was 24 % in the first quarter. Over the first half of the year, the balance remains largely positive with growth of 18% compared to the first half of 2022.

The moderate decline in the market in the second quarter does not affect the ACSIEL index as an annual moving average (see graph). This reached a new record which corresponds to an annual market of €2.760 billion on average over the last 12 months.

In May, ACSIEL indicated that the fairly high level of stocks among a large number of customers could lead to a drop in demand in the months to come. The second quarter results seem to confirm this analysis.

Market trends, however, have shown significant disparities between segments. The decline in the market in the second quarter is largely due to a decline in direct sales to the automobile segment, due to inventory regularizations. This interrupts a series of six quarters of growth but this decline appears purely cyclical and in no way signals a reversal of trend in this sector, the automotive industry remaining in high demand for electronic components of all kinds. The smart card segment also contributed to the market decline but in smaller proportions after six consecutive quarters of growth, as well as the telecom segment which is now very small in France. On the other hand, the industrial segment continued to show good health for the third consecutive quarter, and sales of integrated circuits for the aeronautics/aerospace/defense and IT/consumer segments also drove the market upwards.

Direct sales by product family were almost all on a downward trend, with the exception of MOS logic which remained stable and sales of memory and optoelectronics which increased. Analog circuits, microcontrollers, discretes and sensors and actuators were impacted by the decline in automotive sales. The decline in smart cards has also affected sales of microcontrollers.

Distribution sales fell slightly (-1%) after ten quarters of growth. The share of distribution represented 40% of total semiconductor sales in France in the second quarter, which constitutes a historic record.