2025年摩根士丹利-半导体行业报告：北美分销商一季度调研：行业未见恶化，但复苏尚待

Sluggish Recovery

Past the bottom, sluggish recovery. Analog & MCU have both bottomed, but the recovery since has been sluggish. In the case of analog, February marked the 7th month of the upcycle but we aren’t seeing a material recovery in conditions. This is consistent with MCU where following a bottoming in November, the 3 following months have only seen a very marginal recovery.

Analog: bottomed in July 2024 when we were shipping 7.9% below trend. As of February we are under shipping by 5.7%.

MCU: bottomed in November 2024 when we were shipping 18.3% below trend. As of February we are under shipping by 17.3%.

Recovery slow relative to past cycles. Analog & MCU cycles tend to last 22-26 months (peak to trough/trough to peak), with the inflection from under shipping to over shipping mid-way through the cycle. Analog has only shown a 2ppt recovery 7 months into the upcycle, which is sluggish relative to prior upcycles which have shown a 13ppt recovery at the same time. The only prior upcycle with parallels to current is Jan 2013 through Aug 2013 when we saw the first 7 months show improvement of a similar magnitude (+2ppt). Upcycles following periods of significant macro difficulty, saw double-digit ppt improvement in the first 7 months with Feb 2009 – Sep 2009 improving by 28ppt and Apr 2020 – Nov 2020 improving by 14ppt.

Lead indicators aren't encouraging. Expectations for the JunQ aren’t necessarily encouraging, with q/q growth expectations into the JunQ remaining roughly flat from the MarQ, and we saw a slight pickup in those expecting a q/q decline. Generally, respondents expect the JunQ to be either in-line or weaker than seasonal, consistent across analog and MCU. Across end-markets, automotive and industrial expectations aren’t getting worse but aren’t necessarily getting better. As a whole, our distributor responses suggest that we’re toggling at a cycle bottom, with indication that things are unlikely to get materiallybetter anytime soon. We see this partially due to excess supplier inventory, with analog/ MCU companies holding 163 days worth of inventory as of the DecQ, 52 days above the historic median of 111.

1Q'25 Disti Survey - Main Takeaways

Toggling along a bottom. Relative to last quarter where we saw numerous indicators point towards an improvement in the overall operating environment, survey responses this quarter point towards conditions toggling along a bottom.

Not getting better, but not getting much worse. Q/Q growth expectations into the JunQ remained roughly flat from the MarQ but we saw a slight pickup in those expecting a q/q decline. 45% of respondents expect q/q growth into the JunQ for analog, up from 43% into the MarQ, while 33% of respondents expected q/q growth for MCUs, down from 35% going into the MarQ. Those expecting a q/q decline into the JunQ saw a very slight increase for analog and MCU, with analog increasing from 17% to 22% and MCUs increasing from 17% to 24%.

Inventory responses mixed. Those looking to deplete inventory increased from 63% to 69%, but at a product line level, those looking to build inventory in analog increased from 13% to 22% and from 13% to 24% for MCUs. We aren’t surprised if semiconductor customers are controlling their overall inventory, but given the inventory depletion that has been going on for analog & MCU, our view is that there isn’t much excess inventory for both product lines.

Automotive not getting worse but not getting better, similar to Industrial. 50% of respondents expect weaker than seasonal automotive sales, down from 53% last quarter, but we didn’t see an increase in those expecting stronger than seasonal results (8%). Conditions are similar in industrial where we aren’t seeing a clear improvement in demand.

1Q'25 Disti Survey - Details

In conjunction with Morgan Stanley AlphaWise, we conducted our 50th quarterly survey among 49 semiconductor distributors during Mar. 2025 - Apr. 2025. We asked questions around sales volumes, growth expectations and inventory levels, among other topics. Initial 2Q25 outlook calls for growth in-line or weaker than seasonal but sequential growth expectations are holding steady.