Despite supply bottlenecks for semiconductors, the German electronics industry expects strong growth this year. Production is expected to increase by 4 percent in price-adjusted terms, the industry association ZVEI announced on Monday. If the significant backlog in orders can be worked off quickly, growth could be even higher. The association sees at least one ray of hope when it comes to the supply bottlenecks for primary products, especially semiconductors: An improvement can be expected from the middle of the year at the earliest, said ZVEI President Gunther Kegel. The issue will occupy the industry throughout the year, but with decreasing intensity, he said.
In the competition with the United States and China, there must be no one-sided dependencies, "neither in cutting-edge technologies such as semiconductors nor in cutting-edge research," Kegel said. The European Union should quickly get its support program for microelectronics off the ground, he added.
Last year the electronics industry had recovered rapidly from the coronavirus crisis and more than made up for the declines during the crisis year of 2020. From January to November, production in the sector, which employs 877,000 people, grew by a good 9 percent. It benefited from exports to Europe, China, and the US. Almost all sub-sectors recorded growth, the strongest being batteries, which are in demand for electric cars and e-bikes, Kegel said. But medical technology also saw growth.
Sales in the first 11 months of last year rose by almost 10 percent compared to the same period the previous year. Extrapolated to 2021 as a whole, sales had for the first time just reached the 200-billion-euros mark, the ZVEI reported. Without supply bottlenecks, sales could have been significantly higher.
The association is calling for a faster pace when it comes to climate protection and electrification. For example, network expansion has been neglected for years, said Wolfgang Weber, chairman of the ZVEI board of directors. "Without a high-performance, digitalized power grid, the energy transition cannot succeed." With digitalization and electrification, the demand for electricity in Germany is set to rise sharply: from 500 terawatt hours recently to over 700 terawatt hours by 2030.
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