The Philippine semiconductor and electronics manufacturing industry is keeping its 7-percent growth target for 2021 on strong global demand for electronics.
Semiconductor and Electronics Industry of the Philippines Inc. said the global demand was putting pressure on the supply side, but the Philippines was ready to rise to the challenge.
“Given all the global and local trends and conditions, the board of trustees evaluated the condition of the semiconductors/electronics industry here in the Philippines at our last board meeting. The consensus opinion is that it will be about 7-percent growth forecast for the year,” SEIPI chairman Glenn Everett said during the 3rd quarter general membership meeting Thursday.
He said the growth forecast could have been more on the upper side, if not for the shifting quarantine lockdowns.
“The strict lockdowns have caused impacts and reduced potential [of the industry]. Hopefully, conditions will improve and restrictions will be reduced, then we will be able to live up to a larger potential,” he said.
Electronics exports in June grew by 8.9 percent to $4.03 billion, accounting for 61.9 percent of the Philippines total export for the month. Hong Kong, China, the US and the European Union were the top destinations in June.
Global semiconductor sales reached $41.8 billion in April, or 1.9 percent higher than the March sales of $41 billion.
SEIPI said it was also looking forward to the creation of a wafer fab hub that would be housed within the proposed National Science and Technology Center inside the Department of Science and Technology compound in Bicutan City.
The creation of the micro-electronics wafer fab would wean the Philippines from its dependence on Taiwan for fabricated devices.
“So, to protect the intellectual property, shorten the process lead time and hopefully reduce the cost, we have put together a lab scale wafer fab and hopefully, in a couple of years we can build that to support IC design industry for prototyping needs, all in our DOST backyard,” said SEIPI president Dan Lachica.
Another growth opportunity for the industry is the increasing demand for automotive wire harness. SEIPI created a technical working group to organize the cluster and understand how the group can address the needs of the automotive sector.
“Sensors and electronic components account for 70 to 80 percent of automotive electronics, which is an opportunity for us,” the group said.
