According to IHSiSuppli’s analysis report on the price trend of electronic components, affected by the bad global economic condition, prices of many components have been falling sharply, which creates an opportunity for purchasing.
In contrast to previous expectations, prices of many widely used components, such as capacitors, crystals, wave filters, magnetic components, oscillators and printed circuit boards (PCB) will decrease in the third and fourth quarters of this year.
Electronic Component prices usually increase in the second half of each year. Because the demand for electronic components gets stronger in holiday or beginning of a new semester, thus many suppliers will strategically increase their prices. However, as a result of severe financial crisis in Europe and rapid slowdown of Chinese manufacturing sector, prices decrease this year. Although the overall revenue of the whole semiconductor industry is expected to grow in the second half year, prices of many components, responding to the bad economic condition, fall at a faster pace.
The current price trend is very different from the early prediction that prices of many components would rise. This downward price trend is perfectly reflected in the prices of oscillators which are widely used in watches, laptop computers, mobile phones and other electronic products. In particular, price of Voltage Control Xtal Oscillator (VCXO) is expected to fall by 2.0% in the third quarter, 2.4% in the fourth and 2.6% in the first quarter of 2013. While usually the price decline in each quarter is 1.0 to 2.0%.
Although the price decline of oscillator is just slightly higher than the normal level, it is enough to catch the attention of many purchase managers.
It is a good time to buy. IHSiSuppli believes that faster price decline than expected may be a good opportunity for purchasing, and manufacturers, especially the bargain hunters, should consider to purchase some necessary components.
IHSiSuppli predicted that component prices would continue to decline until the second quarter of 2013 when prices of many components, including capacitors, crystals, wave filters, magnetic components, PCB and oscillators, are expected to begin to rebound. Particularly, TCXO price is expected to rise by 2.7% in this quarter.
Despite the price decline of semiconductors is greater than the normal level, the growth of global semiconductor industry in the second half year is expected to be stronger than in the first. Declined by 3.3% in the first quarter and increased by 5.4% in the second, the revenue of global semiconductor sector is expected to rise 8.7% in the third quarter and 1.0% in forth.