News: Markets
2 April 2020
RF GaAs revenue falls nearly 6% in 2019, due to declining smartphone shipments
Revenue from RF gallium arsenide (GaAs)-enabled devices fell by nearly 6% in 2019 (the biggest decline since 2004), due mainly to declining smartphone shipments, according to the Strategy Analytics Advanced Semiconductor Applications (ASA) report ‘RF GaAs Device Industry Forecast: 2018 – 2024’.
Growth will resume, forecasts the report, allowing RF GaAs device revenue to approach $9bn by 2024. Drivers for this renewed growth will be the quickening pace of 5G network and device deployments.
“Wireless applications, particularly cellular terminals, dominate GaAs device revenue,” notes Eric Higham, director of the Advanced Semiconductor Applications (ASA) service. “Smartphones contain substantial GaAs content, so it was no surprise when declining shipments in 2019 pulled down the entire GaAs market,” he adds. “Despite the uncertain COVID-19 implications, I remain optimistic that expanding deployments of 5G devices and networks will become the new growth engine for GaAs device revenue. We will be monitoring developments at GaAs handset PA [power amplifier] manufacturers like Skyworks, Qorvo and Broadcom to get better clarity about the 5G growth trajectory.”
