TECHCET— the electronic materials advisory firm providing business and technology information on semiconductor supply chains — announced it expects a slight downturn in the Quartz components market, following an all-time high in 2022. Fabricated quartz equipment components revenues reached an estimated US$2.14 billion in 2022, growing 24.5%, above 2021. The huge growth in components was a result of continued demand in new OEM equipment in 1H2022. However, by Q4 2022 and into H1 2023, the industry began down shifting their investments. Luckily, previous 2022 purchases and backlogs are expected to buoy up the components market for the first half of 2023. “Orders in Q1 2023 declined QoQ, and as we move into 2H2023, the components market is expected to slow,” stated Lita Shon-Roy, TECHCET’s President/CEO. Most of the orders from 2022 will have been shipped by 2H2023 and new orders will be down YoY, resulting in an overall -6% decline for 2023, as shown in TECHCET’s newly released Quartz Equipment Components Critical Materials Report™. Despite this decline, new fab expansions are expected to revamp growth in the future, as seen from the 5% CAGR for 2022-2027.
The goal of most fabricators during the 2021-2022 time frame was to simply keep making as much quartz product as possible with existing production facilities. “Solving production and logistic issues, hiring and training new personnel, and acquiring new production equipment were all pathways that quartz fabricators used to incrementally push up their capacity,” Lita Shon-Roy stated. Now in Q2 2023, the industry has shifted gears from full scale production to planning for fewer purchase orders for the remainder of the year. Though the industry is slowing this year, quartz demand is still expected to ramp in 2024 for newly advanced process nodes, OEM needs, and legacy requirements.
