SEC/N Thoughts
Gary Alexander, President, SEC/N -- Semiconductor International, 8/1/2001
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The question isn't always phrased the same way, but hardly a week goes by that we at SEC/N don't receive a request for information on the size of the semiconductor used-equipment business. The bottom line is that there isn't a number that is even close to being accurate, or currently a good way to calculate such a metric.
Calculating the size of the new-equipment marketplace isn't tough. Basically it is a summary of the monthly sales figures, which the OEMs provide to forecast organizations through various channels. And while there are quite a few OEMs in the semiconductor industry, the number of worldwide companies selling used equipment is virtually exponential. Secondly, the information that is available is often overstated or understated because the same equipment gets reported by various sellers such as the original owner, broker and remanufacturer; or various components of the sale are left out, such as deinstallation, decontamination, installation, freight and software licenses.
And thirdly, not all companies are willing to share information on their used-equipment sales, for primarily two reasons: 1) They don't know. The information on used-equipment sales is either not tracked separately or not tracked at all; and 2) Some companies don't want the public knowing how much volume they are doing in used-equipment sales. They consider it a competitive advantage that they don't want to share, or they are embarrassed because they don't have a used-equipment program and are ashamed to admit it.
The bottom line is that the semiconductor used-equipment business is continuing to grow at an ever-accelerating rate, and the industry continues to search for a metric to measure that growth.
Contact Gary Alexander at galexander@secninc.com and visit SEC/N's Web site at www.secninc.com .
