China's semiconductor equipment market is hot, expanding investment and strong demand

According to a recent report released by SEMI, driven by government incentives and chip localization policies, China's semiconductor equipment market will maintain an annual investment of more than $30 billion in the next four years, continuing to lead the global fab equipment spending.

SEMI said China's record investment in chip production equipment was driven not only by large chipmakers such as SMIC, but also by the growth momentum of small and medium-sized chipmakers.
In terms of policy, at the beginning of September, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "First (set) Major technical equipment promotion and Application Guidance Directory (2024 version)". In the "First (set) Major Technical Equipment Promotion and Application Guidance Catalog (2024 edition)" electronic special equipment catalog, integrated circuit equipment includes: argon fluoride lithography machine, light source 193 nm, resolution ≤65nm, engraving ≤8nm.
In addition to actively investing in the promotion of domestic semiconductor manufacturing equipment, the trend of mainland Chinese companies to hoard equipment is also expanding.
On September 5, the global semiconductor manufacturing equipment sales statistics released by the Semiconductor Manufacturing Equipment Association of Japan (SEAJ) show that from January to June 2024, global semiconductor equipment sales increased by 1% year-on-year to reach $53.2 billion. Among them, the sales of the Chinese mainland market was 24.73 billion US dollars, reaching about 1.8 times that of the same period last year. Sales in the Chinese mainland market have soared since July to September 2023 and have maintained a strong momentum.