SEMI released the "Statistical Report on the Global Semiconductor Equipment Market". The report shows that global semiconductor manufacturing equipment sales will surge in 2021, an increase of 44% from $71.2 billion in 2020 to $102.6 billion, another record high. Among them, mainland China has once again become the world's largest semiconductor equipment market.

Specifically, mainland China has become the largest market for semiconductor equipment in the world for the second time, with sales increasing by 58% to US$29.6 billion, accounting for 41.6% of the global market. It is worth noting that this is also the fourth consecutive year of growth in mainland China's semiconductor equipment market.

South Korea is the second largest semiconductor equipment market in the world. After strong growth in 2020, sales of semiconductor equipment in South Korea will increase by 55% in 2021 to $25 billion. The size of the semiconductor equipment market in Taiwan increased by 45% to US$24.9 billion, ranking third. The European and North American equipment markets grew 23% and 17%, respectively, with sales of $3.25 billion and $7.61 billion, continuing their recovery from the market contraction in 2020. Sales in the Japanese semiconductor market were $7.8 billion, up 3% year over year. Rest of the world sales rose 79% in 2021.

In addition, global wafer processing equipment sales rose 44% in 2021, while other front-end equipment sales showed a 22% increase. Packaging equipment sales increased significantly in all regions of the world, with an overall increase of 87% in market size. Overall test equipment sales increased 30%.

Ajit Manocha, President and CEO of SEMI, said that in 2021, global semiconductor manufacturing equipment spending will increase by 44%, underscoring the global semiconductor industry's aggressive drive to increase capacity. This drive to expand production capacity can help alleviate current supply imbalances.

The rapid growth of the global semiconductor manufacturing equipment market is obviously related to the expansion of the foundry capacity of major wafer manufacturers. Chi Xiannian, an expert in the semiconductor industry, said that driven by strong demand, major manufacturers are accelerating the expansion of production capacity in the past two years. This has led to the rapid development of the global semiconductor equipment market in 2021 with an increase of more than 40%. Demand for semiconductors such as 5G demand upgrades, new energy vehicles, and IoT applications are still growing. Based on this, Chi Xiannian believes that in the next three years, the global semiconductor equipment market will continue to maintain rapid growth, but its growth rate will be slightly lower than the value in 2021.