[News] Booming Sales of Japanese Semiconductor Equipment Continue to Break Records, Reportedly Surpassing JPY 300 Billion

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Sales of semiconductor manufacturing equipment in Japan have been reportedly strong, with April 2024 witnessing the largest increase in sales in 17 months, continuing to surpass the JPY 300 billion mark and setting a new record for the highest monthly sales. The sales volume for the period from January to April also reached a historical high for the same period.

The Semiconductor Equipment Association of Japan (SEAJ) announced on May 27th that the sales of Japanese-made semiconductor equipment in April 2024 (three-month moving average, including exports) reached JPY 389.106 billion, an increase of 15.7% compared to the same month last year. This marks the fourth consecutive month of growth, showing the largest increase in 17 months (since November 2022), with a remarkable growth rate of 19.1%.

Monthly sales have exceeded JPY 300 billion for the sixth consecutive month, surpassing the previous record of JPY 380.929 billion in September 2022, setting a new historical high for single-month sales.

Compared to the previous month (March 2024), sales grew by 6.4%, marking the sixth consecutive month of month-on-month growth.

The cumulative sales of Japanese semiconductor equipment from January to April 2024 reached JPY 1.387079 trillion, a 9.4% increase compared to the same period last year, setting a new historical high for this period.

Japan’s global market share of semiconductor equipment (calculated based on sales) stands at 30%, making it the second-largest in the world, following the United States.

In a financial report press release on May 10, Japanese chip equipment giant Tokyo Electron (TEL) indicated that the increased demand for DDR5 and HBM from the second half of this year is expected to drive a recovery in investment in the leading-edge DRAM.

As a result, the global market size for front-end chip manufacturing equipment (Wafer Fab Equipment; WFE) in 2024 is projected to grow by 5% year-on-year to approximately 100 billion USD, matching the current historical high recorded in 2022 (around USD 100 billion). Additionally, with continued growth in AI servers and a recovery in demand for PCs and smartphones, the WFE market is anticipated to see a double-digit increase (over 10%) in 2025 compared to 2024.

In a financial report press release on May 9, semiconductor equipment company Screen Holdings stated that due to investments in mature processes in China and investments in the most advanced processes in Taiwan, the WFE market is expected to grow in 2024, with an estimated annual increase of about 5%.

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(Photo credit: TEL)