Telecom Lead America: Sales of RF and wireless components
declined approximately 3 percent in Q1 2012.
Lower shipments of cellphones and slower growth in Asia
and Europe contributed to the decline in growth.
“Component suppliers produced a blizzard of new
products and accompanying product announcements in Q1, a period that included
two of the largest industry trade shows, the Consumer Electronics Show (CES)
and Mobile World Congress (MWC). Of greatest significance, seven suppliers
announced multimode LTE basebands, and three suppliers announced chipsets for
802.11ac Wi-Fi. Devices that support these standards will drive much of the
expected wireless industry growth over the next five years,” said Christopher
Taylor, director, Strategy Analytics RF & Wireless Components.
The median profitability of companies in the industry
declined from a healthy 12 percent profit-to-sales ratio the previous quarter
to a weaker 5.3 percent reported in Q1. This could mark the start of a second
dip of a double-dip recession, but sales declined a very modest 3 percent
sequentially for the industry, remaining quite healthy by historical standards.
