The global market for electronic specialty gases grew by almost 20% last year – from $4.4bn in 2021 to $5.2bn in 2022.
This growth was driven by continued expansion in the worldwide semiconductor industry, as well as new supply chain challenges encouraging stockpiling of inventory. However, this market growth will be short-lived as semiconductor producers started slowing production at the end of 2022 due to a worsening demand outlook. For 2023, there are several large challenges impacting the demand for electronic specialty gases. These challenges are driven by the global macroeconomic situation and the continued unwinding of excess inventories and new geopolitical developments, while the development of new capacity to meet new regional demands is still in progress. Efforts to meet Net Zero carbon commitments in the electronics value chain will also have an increasing impact on electronic specialty gases over the next decade.
The growth of spend on electronic specialty gases in 2022 was down to the shortage of rare gases worldwide and the rapid price increases this shortage triggered. This was also the largest supply chain challenge that the industry faced, with the destabilization mostly caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The price increases for these rare gases accounted for approximately two-thirds of the $852m growth in the electronic specialty gas market last year. The semiconductor industry is now the largest consumer of rare gases, and the industry spent approximately $1bn on its purchases of neon, krypton, and xenon for key applications in the fab. Samsung is today believed to be the largest consumer of rare gases globally.
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