ABI: Cellular/3G Decline Will Negatively Impact RF Power Semiconductor Device Market

April 26, 2008 // Published as a news service by IHS

These segments are wireless infrastructure, military, industrial/scientific/medical (ISM), broadcast, commercial avionics and non-cellular communications, with each segment branching out into smaller niches to permit highly specific forecasts for the market.

"Wireless infrastructure represents the largest segment for RF power semiconductors, and it contains the largest sub-segment - cellular/3G [third-generation]," said ABI Research director Lance Wilson.

"But cellular/3G is in a sense a long-term market anomaly that is now in a decline which will continue steadily over the next five years."

More efficient air interfaces, coupled with average selling price (ASP) erosion and the build-out of the infrastructure base, are what drive this sub-segment downward from a revenue standpoint. On the device side, analysts said wide-scale adoption of plastic packages diminishes revenue as well.

Through the 2007-2012 forecast period, revenues for the cellular/3G sub-segment will decline at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of nearly 8%.

WiMAX [worldwide interoperability for microwave access] - another sub-segment within wireless infrastructure - remains controversial," said Wilson. "Although fixed WiMAX is deploying, mobile WiMAX (802.16e) is in a state of flux from a high-power standpoint. There is a potential large upside to mobile WiMAX, but there are no guarantees that this will actually occur in a wide sense."

In spite of this possibility, analysts said the overall wireless infrastructure segment will decline by a CAGR of 2% over the 2007-2012 forecast period.

Analysts said the entire marketplace will exhibit a five-year growth rate of only 2.9%, illustrating the effect of cellular/3G decline. However, the remaining major segments show a healthy CAGR over the forecast period of 9.5%, with the military and ISM segments leading the pack.

Source: ABI Research.