The market for power management chips “likely recovered” in Q2...

revenue from power management semiconductors grew 9.7 percent from Q1 to $7.9 billion. There was a 10.7 percent decrease in Q4 last year and a 4 percent contraction of revenue in Q1, it said. “While lack of demand was to blame for the dismal performance” in Q4 and Q1, “a pickup in the market for power management chips in consumer-type products is believed to have returned the market to growth” in Q2, said Marijana Vukicevic, IHS senior principal analyst-power management. “The products responsible for fueling growth” included mobile handsets, tablets, PCs and other CE devices, such as cameras, the analyst said. The “encouraging” revenue results estimate for Q2 will “help reverse some of the inventory buildup accumulating in the channel for the last three quarters, when consumer spending had slowed down amid prevailing economic uncertainties,” IHS said. Continued growth is expected for the remaining two quarters this year as the markets enter the “busy selling season,” it said. Total 2012 power management revenue is expected to reach $32.4 billion, it said. Although 2012 will end with a “very modest projected pickup of 1.7 percent after nearly flat growth in 2010, the years ahead will see a boost in the power management space,” IHS predicted. The consumer markets are “expected to regain some vigor starting in 2013, while growth will continue uninterrupted in the industrial and alternative energy sectors traditionally home to a strong power management revenue base,” it said. The largest expansion over the next five years, at a compound annual growth rate until 2016 of nearly 30 percent, will come from the use of power management chips in iPads and other tablets, it projected.