Driven by increasing GaAs content in cellular terminals, the GaAs device market experienced another year of record revenues. According to a report by Strategy Analytics GaAs device revenue will break the $7 billion barrier this year and surpass $8 billion before the end of the forecast period. The report states that GaAs device revenue will grow, even though price erosion and competitive technologies will slow the growth rates. Despite continuing concern in some quarters about the future of GaAs devices, the market saw its second consecutive year of double-digit growth. Other technologies are capturing market share, but evolving device and network architectures need increasing GaAs content and this is offsetting some of the share loss.
Defense systems, particular in radar, communications and EW applications still rely on the performance of GaAs devices. Segments like these will continue to fuel GaAs revenue growth over the next few years.
Some Key Takeaways from this Report:
- Wireless applications remain the dominant segment of GaAs device market, accounting for just slightly less than 80 percent of all revenue.
- The cellular terminal portion of the wireless segment accounts for slightly more than 50 percent of all GaAs device revenue. New architectures will increase the GaAs content in cellular terminals and even though CMOS PAs will continue capturing market share, the cellular terminal share of the market will grow to slightly more than 55 percent by the end of the forecast period.
- In response to price erosion and losing market share to competitive technologies, GaAs device revenue will peak in 2018 at just over $8 billion, before declining by less than 1 percent in 2019.
Download the GaAs Device Forecast and Outlook: 2014 - 2019.
