SCOTTSDALE, AZ – Worldwide IC unit shipments will register their first-ever back-to-back annual decline in 2020, according to IC Insights.

IC Insights’ baseline forecast for the global IC market in 2020 is a decline of 4%, with total IC unit shipments expected to fall 3%.

From 2013 through 2018, IC unit shipments were on a growth path, with an 8% increase in 2013, a 9% jump in 2014, a 5% increase in 2015, a 7% increase in 2016, a double-digit growth rate of 15% in 2017, and a 10% increase in 2018. In contrast to the double-digit increases in 2017 and 2018, 2019 marked only the fifth time in the history of the IC industry that IC unit shipments registered a decline.

Before last year, the previous four years IC unit shipments declined were 1985, 2001, 2009, and 2012.  Two of the four years in which IC unit volumes declined (1985 and 2001) were preceded by big increases (spurred on by inventory builds) of IC unit shipments: 50% in 1984 and 27% in 2000. Although there was only a 2% increase in IC unit shipments in 2008, and there was not an excessive amount of inventory to purge, the depth of the global recession and its negative impact on electronic system sales caused the third annual IC unit decline in history in 2009 (7%), says IC Insights.