South Africa
• In an investor presentation on 12 February, Altron CEO Mteto Nyati announced that it plans to sell non-core subsidiaries Altron Arrow (which currently has 4 interested parties), Altron Document Solutions (5 interested parties) and Altron People Solutions (15 interested parties), in addition to disposing of Altron Managed Solutions which is not for sale. In alignment with its overarching ‘Altron 2.0’ strategy, the company expects to complete (or be in the process of completing) the three sales by the time it presents its 31 August interim financial results for the 2022 financial year.
• ICASA welcomed the appointment of five new members of the Complaints and Compliance Committee (CCC), whose appointment came as a result of the end of term of the former members in December 2020. The new members are: Judge Thokozile Matilda Masipa who will serve as the CCC chairperson, Mr Paris Mashile, Ms Ngwako Molewa, Mr Peter Hlapolosa, and Mr Thato Mahapa.
Overseas
Business
• STMicroelectronics broke the $10 billion barrier for net revenues in its 2020 financial year, thanks to a better than expected second half. For the fourth quarter, the company recorded net revenues of $3,24 billion (up 17,5% year-on-year) and net income of $582 million (up 48,4% year-on-year). For the fiscal year, net revenues increased by 6,9% to $10,22 billion, and net income rose 7,2% to $1,11 billion.
Companies
• Renesas Electronics has reached an agreement with Dialog Semiconductor, a leading provider of power management, charging, AC/DC power conversion, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) technology based in the UK, on the terms of a recommended all-cash acquisition by Renesas, thereby making Dialog a wholly-owned subsidiary. This is a friendly acquisition procedure and Dialog’s board of directors has unanimously resolved this acquisition, which is valued at roughly 4,9 billion Euros.
Industry
• The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) announced that global semiconductor industry sales were $439,0 billion in 2020, an increase of 6,5% compared to the 2019 total of $412,3 billion. Global sales for the month of December 2020 were $39,2 billion, an increase of 8,3% compared to the December 2019 total and 2,0% less than the total from November 2020 (see Figure 1. Fourth-quarter sales of $117,5 billion were 8,3% more than the total from the fourth quarter of 2019 and 3,5% higher than the total from third quarter of 2020.
• IC Insights recently ranked the main IC product categories based on projected sales growth rate. The rankings project the market growth rate for each of the 33 IC product categories defined by the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) organisation. The top ten fastest growing IC segments forecast for this year are shown in Figure 2. Each of the top ten growing IC product categories is expected to see a double-digit increase in sales, but only the top five segments are forecast to grow faster than the total IC market, which IC Insights projects will rise 12% this year.
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