On January 12, Semiconductor Equipment Association of Japan (SEAJ) held a presentation meeting at Tokyo Kaikan to predict the demand for flat panel displays (FPD) for a period from 2022 to 2024.

SEAJ anticipates a decrease by 6.6% after four years amounting down to 3,861.4 billion yen of the total sales of Japan-made equipment consisting of the semiconductors and FPDs made by Japanese manufacturers home and abroad for the financial year of 2023 (April 2023 to March 2024).

SEAJ has deemed unavoidable the influences of many restrictive measures taken by the Bureau of Industry and Security of the US Department of Commerce announced last October applicable to the export to China and the negative effects to investments due to the reduced price of memory. Especially, a great deal of reduction in shipments to China is anticipated due to the restriction by the U.S., although pre-process equipment for shipment to China has accounted for nearly 30% of all on regional terms for these several years. Regarding the sales of semiconductor equipment in 2023 out of the total sales by domestic and foreign companies in the Japanese market, on the other hand, it is forecasted that a sales amount of 1 trillion and 3.6 billion yen up 5% will be attained because a stable investment remains anticipated.

Notwithstanding the declining trend of demand for investments of memory manufacturers, there is a positive movement like Sony’s investment for supply to JASM from the latter part of 2023.

Regarding the forecast of financial year 2024, SEAJ anticipates a full-scale recovery of memory and a steady of logic. Taking into account of the realization of regular investment of FPD using the new technology of G8-sized substrate, SEAJ has shown an aspect of change again into an increase of demand in the total sales of Japan-made equipment by 22.8% amounting to 4,119.7 billion yen. With regard to the sales of semiconductor equipment in the Japanese market, SEAJ has an aspect that the demand will change again to increase by 20% amounting to 1204.3 billion yen.