MCU growth is strong and will hit a record high in 2022

According to IC Insight, a well-known research institute, global sales fell by 6% in 2016 due to slower unit shipments of MCUs, but it is expected to record a record high annual revenue by 2022.

After reducing MCU inventory in 2016, system manufacturers increased their purchases of microcontrollers in 2017. Unit shipments surged 22% and will continue to grow strongly in 2018.

In the 2018 report, IC Insight increased its forecast for MCU shipments, reaching 18% in 2018 and reaching nearly 30.6 billion units.

It is now predicted that MCU revenue will increase by 11% in 2018, reaching an all-time high of $18.6 billion, followed by a 9% increase in 2019, reaching $20.4 billion.

It is expected that the five-year growth of MCU sales will increase to a compound annual growth rate of 7.2%, which will reach nearly 23.9 billion US dollars in 2022, and unit shipments will grow to a compound annual growth rate of 11.1% to approximately 43.8 billion.

The average selling price of microcontrollers fell to its lowest point since 2017, and prices continued to fall at the same rate as in 2018.

However, the annual decline in the past five years has eased compared to earlier in the decade. New forecasts for the average selling price of MCUs show that the average selling price during the 2017-2022 period decreased at a compound annual growth rate of -3.5%, much lower than the -5.8% for the 2012-2017 period and a compound annual growth rate of 20-6.3. % (% between 1997 and 2017).

A key factor in the recovery of MCU sales in 2017 from the decline in 2016 is the shift in the field of smart card microcontrollers. About 40% of MCU shipments are currently used for smart card applications, but this is about half of what it was a decade ago.

In addition to smart card MCUs, sales of "universal" microcontrollers for embedded systems, automation, sensing applications and IoT connections are expected to increase by 11% to $16.4 billion in 2018, up from 14% in 2017.

General MCU shipments are expected to increase by 25% to 18.9 billion units by 2018 after a 21% increase in 2017. General-purpose microcontrollers currently account for more than 60% of MCU unit shipments and are expected to reach 68% of the total by 2022. Currently, the general purpose MCU generates approximately 88% of the total revenue of the microcontroller.

In almost all MCU applications, the strong growth of 32-bit microcontrollers has reshaped the market as vendors are actively promoting more functional designs that are cost-competitive on 8-bit and 16-bit devices, often Used in consumer products and other high-end products.

In some cases, the price of the new 32-bit MCU is lower than the cost of an 8-bit microcontroller. On average, the sales of 32-bit MCUs for all microcontrollers in 2012 were about twice that of ASP (32 for $1.76 and total MCU for $0.88).

In 2018, the 32-bit MCU's ASP is expected to be only $0.09 higher than the total MCU's ASP. By 2022, the difference is expected to shrink to $0.05 (32 for $0.60, and total MCU for $0.55).