On November 4, SEMI's Silicon Manufacturers Group (SMG) announced that global silicon wafer shipments in the third quarter of 2026 reached 3,756 million square inches (MSI). That was up 13.4% from a year earlier and 5.1% from the previous quarter. But the most notable aspect of the figure is how it relates to SEMI's full-year 2026 forecast of 14,420 MSI, issued on October 21. Based on results through the third quarter, fourth-quarter shipments need to grow only 1.6% quarter on quarter to hit that forecast. Given recent shipment trends, there is a good chance that full-year results will exceed it.
Q3 shipments reached 3,756 MSI, with year-on-year growth accelerating
According to SEMI, third-quarter shipments rose 13.4% from 3,313 MSI in the same period a year earlier and 5.1% from 3,573 MSI in the second quarter. Because the second quarter's year-on-year increase was 7.4%, the growth rate widened by about 6 percentage points.
The acceleration cannot be explained by last year's low base alone. Shipments in Q3 2025 fell 0.4% from 3,327 MSI in Q2, so the weak comparison lifted the year-on-year growth rate by only about 0.4 percentage points. The acceleration mainly reflects the 5.1% quarter-on-quarter increase in Q3 2026 shipments.
Masatsugu Miura, chairman of the SMG and head of SUMCO's sales division, cited strong AI-related demand and a recovery in industrial demand as drivers of the increase. He said AI demand is spreading beyond advanced logic chips and memory to power devices and photonics. In industrial applications, demand is improving for robotics, power supplies for AI servers and general-purpose industrial semiconductors, while the spread of wafer bonding and advanced packaging technologies is also supporting demand for 300mm polished wafers.
Hitting the 14,420 MSI full-year forecast requires only 1.6% growth in Q4
In its annual forecast released on October 21, SEMI projected that global silicon wafer shipments in 2026 would rise 11.8% year on year to 14,420 MSI. It also forecast that shipments would set a new record every year from 2027 through 2029, reaching 17,034 MSI in 2029. With the Q3 results now published, we can calculate concretely how much needs to ship to meet the 2026 forecast.
Shipments in 2026 were 3,275 MSI in Q1, 3,573 MSI in Q2 and 3,756 MSI in Q3, for a January–September total of 10,604 MSI. To reach the full-year forecast of 14,420 MSI, the fourth quarter needs to ship 3,816 MSI. That is an increase of just 1.6% from Q3's 3,756 MSI.
The Q3 quarter-on-quarter increase was 5.1%, and Q2 rose 9.1%, including a rebound from the seasonal dip in Q1. Compared with those figures, the 1.6% growth needed to meet the full-year forecast is low. Even if Q4 shipments merely matched Q3 at 3,756 MSI, annual shipments would come to 14,360 MSI, only 60 MSI, or about 0.4%, short of the forecast.
Applying past seasonal patterns suggests even more upside. Shipments in Q4 2025 were 3,437 MSI, up 3.7% from 3,313 MSI in Q3. If 2026 posts a similar gain, Q4 would reach about 3,900 MSI and the full year about 14,500 MSI. This is, of course, only a simple extrapolation of last year's seasonal pattern, but it suggests the 14,420 MSI forecast has room to be exceeded.
One caveat concerns the scope of the shipment figures. SEMI's full-year forecast covers the area of polished and epitaxial wafers shipped by wafer makers to end customers, and excludes non-polished and reclaimed wafers. The quarterly announcement, however, does not state its scope, so we cannot confirm that it matches the full-year forecast exactly. If the two use different criteria, the required Q4 shipment of 3,816 MSI should be treated only as a guide.
In addition, SEMI describes its 2026 full-year forecast as an 11.8% increase from the previous year, but calculating the increase from 2025's actual annual shipments of 12,973 MSI to 14,420 MSI gives about 11.2%, which does not match the published growth rate. The base figure may have been revised, but SEMI does not state the base value it used. For that reason, this article bases its analysis not on the 11.8% growth rate but on the absolute forecast of 14,420 MSI and the published quarterly results.
Why the forecast may not be exceeded, and what to watch next
The full-year forecast is not necessarily conservative. The strongest counterargument is that SEMI may already have factored in slower growth in Q4. The 3,816 MSI needed to meet the forecast is 11.0% higher than Q4 2025's 3,437 MSI. That is below Q3's 13.4% growth and could be read as a reasonable forecast that anticipates slowing growth, given that Q4 2025 was relatively high.
Also, higher wafer shipment area does not necessarily mean revenue or end demand for semiconductors will grow at the same pace. Global silicon wafer shipments in 2025 rose 5.8% from the previous year to 12,973 MSI, but revenue fell 1.2% to $11.4 billion. SEMI attributed the revenue decline to a delayed recovery in demand for conventional applications and a pricing environment that has not improved. Growth in shipment area is an important indicator of a market recovery, but it does not directly guarantee improved earnings for wafer makers.
The effect of inventory adjustments cannot be ignored either. In its October full-year forecast, SEMI cited easing customer inventory adjustments as a tailwind for the shipment recovery, and future shipments may depend on changes in inventory levels. In the Q1 2026 statistics announcement, Ginji Yada, then SMG chairman, said "the recovery is not uniform" and noted that tight memory supply could dampen smartphone and PC shipments. Moreover, this full-year forecast aggregates views from industry participants and, according to SEMI, is not an official forecast of the SMG or of individual member companies.
Still, we maintain the view that full-year results could exceed the forecast. SEMI's forecast is based on information from wafer makers that are SMG members, so Q3 shipment trends may already have been reflected when it was published on October 21. Even so, the 11.0% year-on-year growth needed in Q4 is almost the same as the 11.2% year-on-year increase for the January–September cumulative total. The forecast does not assume that the 13.4% growth recorded in Q3 will continue, and simply maintaining the previous quarter's shipment level would narrow the gap to the forecast to 60 MSI.
Future statistics will show whether this view is correct. SEMI released full-year 2025 shipment statistics on February 10, 2026, and annual results including Q4 2026 are expected around February 2027. Assuming past quarterly figures are not revised, if Q4 shipments fall below 3,816 MSI, the full year will miss 14,420 MSI and the upside view will prove wrong. Conversely, if they exceed 3,816 MSI, the forecast will be surpassed, and if they reach around 3,900 MSI, annual shipments would hit about 14,500 MSI. Beyond Q4 actual shipments, it will also be necessary to check for revisions to past quarterly data and the consistency of the reporting scope.