Due to steady improvements in overall MCU demand and a strong recovery in the smartcard market segment, set to grow 19% this year, overall MCU sales are expected to increase 7% and 9% in 2015 and 2016 , respectively. This is in part due to improvements in the global economy and the emergence of new applications, such as wearable systems and the build-out of the IoT.
The report update predicts worldwide MCU sales to increase by a CAGR of 4.6%, reaching $19.1bn in 2018. Unit sales are expected to reach record highs each year in the forecast period (See Figure 1, below).
Figure 1
With an ultra-low average selling price, smartcard MCUs represent nearly half of all microcontrollers shipped worldwide but generate less than 20% of the total dollar sales – but shipments are expected to rise 20% in 2014 to 8.7bn units. Other MCU sales are forecast to increase 6% to 9.4bn units in 2014.
A change in the market is occurring as 32-bit microcontroller shipments increase since their cost can be under $1 in high volumes – below the cost of 8-bit MCUs. In the forecast period to 2018, total 32-bit MCU sales are expected to grow by a CAGR of 9.5%, to reach $11.0bn. The Mid-Year Update shows 4/8-bit MCU sales falling by a CAGR of 1.3% to $3.7bn in 2018 while 16-bit revenues will barely grow at an annual rate of 0.3%, remaining at $4.2bn in five years.