Medium-sized companies in the Dutch chip sector are said to be investing too little in research and development, consultants from PwC write in a report. Most of these companies are located in the Eindhoven region.
This could cause problems for their competitive position in the long term and could even be detrimental to the entire chip sector.
The medium-sized companies in the sector (companies with a turnover between €50 milllion and €1,5 billion) are said to have invested an increasingly smaller part of their turnover in research and development in recent years. The large companies are investing more and more.
In 2018, medium-sized companies were still responsible for 26 per cent of the research in the sector, but this has now increased to 17 per cent. If the trend does not change, medium-sized high-tech companies will only account for 11 per cent of the research in the sector in 2030.
Big five
At the big five companies in the chip sector, including ASML and NXP, research expenditure actually increased faster than turnover. Since 2018, turnover has increased by an average of 13.4 per cent, while research expenditure increased by 17.3 per cent. In total, the large companies account for 80 per cent of R&D expenditure.
A different trend can be observed among medium-sized companies. Since 2018, the turnover of these companies has increased by 8.1 per cent and expenditure on research and development by only 7.6 per cent.
Competition
This could become problematic in the longer term for the extent to which these Dutch companies can compete with other countries, according to PwC.
Medium-sized companies play a key role in the Dutch chip sector ecosystem, it is said. Co-innovation in which large semiconductor companies and smaller companies work together is an important part of the success of the Dutch chip sector.
In addition, good investments in R&D ensure that companies remain competitive in the longer term – in other words, can compete – and can make sufficient profits.
Source: Studio040
Translated by: Bob
