2009 - What a year its been

Its fair to say that 2009 has been an interesting year... it is fair to say its been an interesting year that at the very least!
Everybody - and I do mean everybody - had concerns at the start of the year as economies hit uncharted waters and semiconductor markets looked to be plunging into another down cycle. This time, however, the prevailing conditions were not the usual that we had seen throughout our 50 year industry history. For the first time ever (so I am led to believe) average selling prices actually rose in January 2009 - commentators put this down to inventory corrections taking place from Q1 the previous year. The rising ASP's did not help dampen widespread concerns of a global economic catastrophe though and share prices bottomed out as firms downsized or put staff on special work plans (such as unpaid leave). Fortunately the doom and gloom of Q1 did not make it to the end of Q2 and reality showed that demand had not completely gone away - the talk now was all about recovery - would it be a V shaped recovery or W shaped?... my view is that we're in for a lob-sided W as the inventory correction needs to be addressed before the underlying economic situation kicks in for the longer term.

Anyhow - before I write a book on the subject you may be interested to know that NMI has indeed produced a book - a year book in fact (from a UK perspective). This book is FREE to download from the website at www.nmi.org.uk It has a review of 2009, a set of feature articles on a number of themes which help drive and shape the microelectronics industry plus a useful directory of members for reference. We hope you like it and if you've got anything you have an opinion on we'd like to hear it.
That's all for now: To conclude, I think it is safe to say that we're all looking forward to getting back to a growth year in 2010 as there's only so much fun we can take!