China to Fall Far Short of its ‘Made-in-China 2025’ Goal for IC Devices

Article By : IC Insights

China domestic content percentage forecast to be about one-third of its 70% 2025 target...

IC Insights said China will fall short of its goal given its current pace. China will only achieve 1/3 of its 70% self-sufficiency goal for IC production as laid out in Beijing’s ‘Made in China 2025’ initiative, based on the May Update to the 2020 McClean Report released by IC Insights.

While the demand for ICs in China is growing rapidly, chip production in the country is struggling to keep up. According to US market research firm IC Insights., IC production in China represented 15.7% of its $125 billion IC market in 2019, up only slightly from 15.1% five years earlier in 2014.  As shown in Figure 1, IC Insights forecasts that this share will increase by 5.0 percentage points to 20.7% in 2024 (1% point per year on average).

 

A very clear distinction should be made between China’s IC market and indigenous IC production in China.  As IC Insights has oftentimes stated, although China has been the largest consuming market for ICs since 2005, it does not necessarily mean that large increases in IC production within China would immediately follow, or ever follow.

Of the $19.5 billion worth of ICs manufactured in China last year, China-headquartered companies produced only $7.6 billion (38.7%), accounting for only 6.1% of the country’s $124.6 billion IC market.  TSMC, SK Hynix, Samsung, Intel, and other foreign companies that have IC wafer fabs located in China produced the rest.  IC Insights estimates that of the $7.6 billion in ICs manufactured by China-based companies, about $1.8 billion was from IDMs and $5.8 billion was from foundries like SMIC.

If China-based IC manufacturing rises to $43.0 billion in 2024 as IC Insights forecasts, China-based IC production would still represent only 8.5% of the total forecasted 2024 worldwide IC market of $507.5 billion.  Even after adding a significant markup to some of the Chinese foundry producers’ IC sales, China-based IC production is still likely represent only about 10% of the global IC market in 2024.

Virtual Event - PowerUP Asia 2024 is coming (May 21-23, 2024)

Power Semiconductor Innovations Toward Green Goals, Decarbonization and Sustainability

Day 1: GaN and SiC Semiconductors

Day 2: Power Semiconductors in Low- and High-Power Applications

Day 3: Power Semiconductor Packaging Technologies and Renewable Energy

Register to watch 30+ conference speeches and visit booths, download technical whitepapers.

Leave a comment