Behind America’s crackdown on Chinese chips: the world’s top 10 chip companies lost 7 trillion yuan in one year

Recently, a well-known analyst, Deloitte, released a report indicating that the global semiconductor industry was severely hit in 2022 due to global macroeconomic and geopolitical factors.
According to data, the total market value of the top 10 chip companies in the world decreased by 34% from $2.9 trillion in November 2021 to $1.9 trillion, equivalent to $1 trillion (approximately 7 trillion yuan).
From the end of 2021 to the end of 2022, the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell 37%.
Behind the US’s crackdown on Chinese chips: The top 10 chip companies in the world lost money in one year
From a specific perspective, memory chips should be the most affected. The price of high-end memory has decreased by 50% in the past year, while the price of GPUs has also decreased by about 40%. Other chip products such as CPUs have declined slightly, but inventories are high. The average delivery time for the entire industry has been extended to approximately 25.5 weeks, compared to 10-14 weeks under normal circumstances.
Deloitte said that the global semiconductor industry is currently reshaping, and geopolitical factors may be becoming the dominant force shaping the semiconductor industry.
It is predicted that the global chip market will not improve significantly in 2023, and the downturn may continue until at least the fourth quarter.
Behind the US’s crackdown on Chinese chips: The top 10 chip companies in the world lost money in one year
In fact, as institutional analysis shows, the biggest reason for the sharp decline is the impact of geopolitical factors. To put it more bluntly, the United States wants to disrupt the integration of the global chip industry chain by suppressing the Chinese chip industry, ultimately causing huge shocks in the semiconductor industry and causing heavy bloodshed among chip companies.
This US crackdown will indirectly affect the development opportunities of global semiconductor manufacturers. The latest restrictive measures in the United States are “bad news” for the global semiconductor industry.
On the one hand, the integrated industrial chain cut off by the United States has led to turbulence in the global chip supply chain. The chip prices in 2021 and 2022 are based on this.
Behind the US crackdown on Chinese chips: The top 10 chip companies in the world lost 7 trillion yuan a year,
Then powerful countries and regions around the world began to pursue independence. For example, the European Union, Japan, South Korea, and China have increased investment, chip subsidies, and the development of semiconductors, resulting in very unstable supply, affecting the entire industrial chain.
At the same time, China, as the world’s largest chip demand market and global manufacturing base for electronic products, has been greatly affected, resulting in a decrease in the number of imported chips and the production of electronic products.
The chips and semiconductor equipment exported by American chip companies to China are affected, ultimately affecting performance, and then fed back to the capital market.
Behind America’s crackdown on Chinese chips: Global top ten chip companies lost money in one year
Over the past few decades, the semiconductor market has been continuously developing and expanding. It relies on global markets and global cooperation and innovation, which is also the core driving force for the development of the semiconductor industry.
Today, global integration has disappeared. In Zhang Zhongmou’s words, “Globalization is almost doomed to failure, and free trade is almost doomed to failure.”.
After decades of global integration, no country or region has a complete chip supply chain. It is difficult to develop a complete industrial chain by oneself now.
There is not enough market to support demand; If there is not enough technology to support the market, then technology will lag behind in talent cultivation and the entire industrial chain. This is a problem faced by both American chip companies and China’s chip industry.