The worldwide semiconductor market will reach $100,000m this year, reckons Dataquest. By next year, says the market researcher, microcomponent parts will overtake memory chips as the dominant semiconductor product. Asia-Pacific and the rest of the world will have 28% of the market by 1998, with China the largest consumer in the region. North America is expected to make up 34.7% of the total market in 1998 – the highest figure for the region since 1986. While the North American and Asia-Pacific regions will continue their growth of the past few years, Japan and Europe will grow more slowly. Japan will be hard hit as electronic manufacturing migrates to other nations in the region.
