The market of semiconductor gas related equipment has been experiencing a rapid downturn since this summer. The number of orders has so much decreased that the gas equipment manufacturers are reviewing their production line.
So long as the situation continues, Most probably there will be a decrease of 10% from the record-high level attained in 2017.

The capital investment to the production of 3D-NAND flash memory or DRAM had grown at a quite high rate of 10 to 20% for five years consecutively. However orders and outstanding deliveries turned out to stay sluggish in this April and following months and an apparent dropping was recognized in August. It is mainly because of the announcement of postponement of the capital investment plan by Samsung Electronics, Micron and Intel, which applied the brake on the demand of semiconductor manufacturing equipment after having enjoyed the best time.

　It was followed by the substantial drop in the orders for the supply to gas equipment manufacturers. As a result, the production line has come to be open but actually suspended.

　The reason why the semiconductor manufacturers cooled down so suddenly is rather simple. It was caused by the dropping of price affected by a feeling of excessive demand for memories.

Samsung changed the planned production of Pyeontaek Plant #2 from 3D-NAND type flash memory to DRAM, but the plan in itself has been put off to the next year or later.

In addition, under the influence of the bilateral tariff battle from the economic friction between the USA and China, dark clouds are looming over the Chinese semiconductor market which was planning an ultra-big investment.

The exchange rate of RMB/$ declined by around 10% from RMB6.26 on March 31, 2018 to RMB6.88 on September 30, 2018.

There are declines also in stock prices and the market capitalization has substantially declined. Some people are worried about the future economy of China.

The most advanced semiconductor equipment is mainly manufactured by Japan and US manufacturers like Applied Materials, Lam Research and Tokyo Electron. If foreign currency runs short in China, the introduction itself becomes difficult. Unstable factors have shown up all at once now.

It may well be said that the electronics gas related equipment market has been plunged into a stagnant mode from the latter half of 2018.