LONDON, UK: The global semiconductor market will fall by 28 percent in value and by 26 percent in unit shipments in 2009 after the unprecedented collapse of Q4 2008, according to Malcolm Penn, CEO and founder of Future Horizons. Penn was speaking at Future Horizons’ International Forecast Seminar (IFS) in London yesterday.

Penn’s prediction is for an unprecedented fall in the industry, although he also predicts a recovery in 2010 with the resumption of growth in Q3 2009.  “Just how much of the growth we experienced from 2004 to 2007 was smoke and mirrors?” asks Penn. “The current situation has been fuelled by greed and short term business goals, and now consumer confidence is low with no one sure when this will all end.”

Penn is predicting that Q2 2009 will be the bottom of the dip, with a 15 percent increase forecast for 2010 and 28 percent in 2011.

“The good news is that the chip market entered this recession in fairly good shape,” he continued. “The situation is not great, but it isn’t 2001. The industry started to cut back on capacity expansion a year before the recession hit, whether by luck or by judgment, and this means we will not see a repeat of the 2001 crash.”

“In 2001, the semiconductor market was the cause of the global recession, this time it is the victim,” said Penn. “There was no overspend in 2008 on technology, networks or systems, and the markets are now twice as big and global unlike 2001.”