The European Semiconductor Market faces first signs of a decline since 2 years in Q3/2011. DMASS (Distributors’ and Manufacturers’ Association of Semiconductor Specialists), reported a negative 4.4% growth to 1.5 Billion Euro, compared to Q3/2010. In the first 9 months of 2011 DMASS reported consolidates sales of 5.02 Billion Euro (+13.2%).

From all regions, Eastern Europe was the only one still growing in Q3 (15.5% to 228 Million Euro). With -3.7% to 531 Million Euro, Germany held strongly against the current weakness in Western Europe, as did France with -5.2% to 104 Million Euro. UK & Ireland declined by 7.5% to 128 Million Euro and Italy by 11.1% to 136 Million Euro. All other regions declined between 7.5% (Nordic) and 19.1% (Austria).

Georg Steinberger, chairman of DMASS: “While the majority of Eastern European countries are low-cost manufacturing-driven, Russia is the only one genuinely growing out of its own market demand. Interestingly, the Baltic countries play a more prominent role now with manufacturing shifts from Scandinavia.”

As the decline overall was moderate, the different product areas more or less fell in line with declines mainly in the single-digits. On a positive note, Other Logic still grew by 17%, followed by Fibre Optics (9%), Power (3.6%), Flash Memories (3.2%) and LEDs (1%). While Discrete Total (-2.2%) and Opto Total (-3.8%) declined moderately, Memory Total (-10.9%) and Programmable Logic (-14.6%) dropped over-proportionally. Analog and MOS Micro as the biggest product areas for distribution shrank by 6.9% and 2.2% respectively.