China's 2020 chip imports are expected to remain above $300 billion for the third consecutive year, said Wei Shaojun, deputy director of the China Semiconductor Industry Association, at the World Semiconductor Congress in Nanjing.
China's chip imports in 2019 amounted to $304 billion, far exceeding the second-most imported crude oil. Although the overall amount of chip imports is very large, imports decreased by $8 billion compared with 2018, down 2.6 percent year-on-year.
Wei Shaojun said that the number of chips imported into China in 2019 exceeded $300 billion, but the foreign dependence of high-end chip products is still very high. However, in the low- and mid-range chip market, the domestic substitution capacity is continuing to improve, slowly reducing the degree of dependence on foreign countries.
In the first half of 2020, the global semiconductor market grew 4.52% year-on-year, with sales reaching $208.5 billion.
According to the China Semiconductor Industry Association, the sales of China's integrated circuit industry from January to June 2020 were $353.9 billion, up 16.1 percent year-on-year, with a slight increase in growth rate from the first quarter.
According to Chinese customs statistics, China imported 242.27 billion integrated circuits in January-June 2020, up 25.5 percent year-on-year; the import value of $154.61 billion, up 12.2 percent year-on-year.
Wei Shaojun said that the first half of the global semiconductor growth 100% contributed by the Chinese market, because China is relatively early out of the impact of the epidemic, so China's semiconductor demand has steadily increased to drive the growth of global semiconductor.
China previously said that domestically made chip self-sufficiency rate to reach 70% in 2025. In 2019, China's chip self-sufficiency rate is only about 30%, that is to say, to become double the self-sufficiency rate in this six-year period.
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In 2019, China's IC industry sales revenue was 756.22 billion yuan, and in 2020, China's IC industry sales revenue is expected to exceed 900 billion yuan.
China has been the world's largest chip importer. In Wei Shaojun's view, the biggest problem facing China's integrated circuits is that Chinese companies are not investing enough in research and development.
He believes that even though some companies have now invested more than 20% in R&D, the volume is too small and still cannot achieve a completely positive cycle. At present, China's IC industry urgently needs capital and technology guided by a national strategy.