Renesas leads OE automotive semiconductor pack

The market for original equipment (OE) automotive semiconductors grew by 12 per cent to $ 25.5 billion in 2012, according to a recent report by Semicast Research. Renesas Electronics once again took the top vendor spot with an estimated market share of 13.3 per cent, followed by Infineon (8.3%), STMicroelectronics (7.4%) and Freescale (6.6%).

Semicast Principal Analyst Colin Barnden commented that the list of top suppliers has remained the same since 2006 despite significant market peaks and dips over the past six years.

Car electronics propels design centres in emerging markets
The wider availability of skilled labour, necessary infrastructure, allied with the existence of other high tech industries, government incentives and lower costs have enabled the rise of design centres in countries, such as Bulgaria, the Philippines and Vietnam, despite being small auto markets. Read full story here.

The increasing demand for next generation automotive technologies that go beyond touchscreens, satellite radio and voice-activated GPS commands will further boost the growth of the automotive IC market in the next three years, according to several reports from IC Insights. Consequently, these technologies will soon begin to appear in more new car models. (See Emerging tech to drive car IC growth, Comms, car IC market to top total market growth through 2016)

Currency movements are likely to have a substantial impact on OE automotive market shares in 2013, particularly for Renesas which reports in yen. Newly elected Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has announced plans to depreciate the yen in the short term, to stimulate the Japanese economy and raise domestic inflation to a target of two per cent.

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