Paris, November 25, 2020 – In unison with the European market, the French semiconductor market has rebounded significantly in the third quarter of 2020 after being strongly affected in the second by the economic slowdown due to the health crisis. According to Acsiel Alliance Electronique, sales in France reached 402 million euros, representing growth of 13% quarter-on-quarter and 3% compared to the third quarter of 2019. Year-on-year over a period over 12 months, the French market is down 9%, in line with the entire European market down 8% according to data published by the WSTS.

The recovery is spectacular in France for direct sales to equipment manufacturers and integrators which increased by 25% in the third quarter after a fall of 23% in the previous quarter. On the other hand, sales to distributors recorded a second consecutive quarter of sequential decline with -10%.

The automotive segment, which is by far the leading market for direct sales, is also the main contributor to the dynamics of the third quarter. It recorded sequential growth of 50%, thanks to the restart of French vehicle production which had been virtually brought to a standstill during the spring confinement. This strong rebound naturally translates into an equally spectacular recovery in sales of components that are widely used in automotive electronics. Thus, all analog and MOS logic integrated circuits, and sensors and actuators, increased by 45% after a fall of 39% in the second quarter.

The industrial segment showed greater stability in the turmoil and was less severely affected than the automobile sector thanks to a multitude of applications whose markets are structurally growing. Direct sales to equipment manufacturer and integrator customers (OEM and EMS) of semiconductors intended for industrial applications benefited from growth of 11% in the third quarter after having fallen in the same proportions in the second.

The smart card segment, which tends to erode due to the progressive integration of security functions into the heart of the system, is also driven by digitalization and, as a result, has until now shown a fairly good resilience in the face of the Covid-19 crisis. Sales of semiconductors to the aeronautics and defense segment, which were the only ones to have recorded growth in the previous quarter, were down 9% in the third quarter, penalized by avionics which remains very depressed and by a defense market which fluctuates quite a bit. largely from one quarter to the next based on one-off orders.

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