Forecast Accuracy

You have a business to run and that business’ success depends on the quality of your planning.  But your planning can only be as good as the forecast you use as an input.

Objective Analysis forecasts semiconductor market revenues using an approach that has proven for over a decade to be the most consistently-accurate methodology in the industry.  Our methodology, which we often explain and openly discuss, involves understanding commodity market dynamics and the impact of commodity semiconductors on the entire semiconductor market.  It also is built around an understanding of capital spending (“CapEx”) as a driving force for semiconductor cycles, tempered with a deep understanding of the technology and with survey inputs from not only suppliers, but also from numerous end users of the technology.

The table below provides a review of the historical accuracy of our forecasts since 2008.  Review it for yourself to see how close we came each year.

Year	Forecast	Actual
2008	Zero growth at best.	-3%
2009	Growth in the mid teens	-9%
2010	Should approach 30%	32%
2011	Muted revenue growth: 5%	0%
2012	Revenues drop as much as -5%	-2.7%
2013	Revenues increase nearly 10%	4.9%
2014	Revenues up 20%+	9.9%
2015	Revenues up ~10%	-0.2%
2016	Revenues up ~10%	1.1%
2017	Revenues up ~20%	22%
2018	Strong start supports 10+% growth	14%
2019	Semiconductors down -5%	-12.5%
2020	Zero growth at best	6.8%
2021	Revenues grow 6% by remaining flat	26.2%
2022	Total semi still grows 6%	3.2%
2023	Semiconductors decline 19%	TBD

The hot links on the years will take you to short video recordings made in December of the year prior to each of the forecasts.  (NOTE: As of TechInsights’ 2022 acquisition of VLSI Research, some of these links no longer function.  We are working to fix that.)

We know of no other semiconductor market research firm that is willing to provide reviews of their prior forecasts.

Many thanks to VLSI Research for recording these videos and providing them on line.