RF is the historical market driver for GaAs wafers. In 2019 it represented 33% of market volume and 37% of market value. RF represents 67% of the GaAs epiwafer open market, says Yole Developpement.

GaAs RF demand is mainly driven by handset evolution, with the transition to 5G resulting in greater penetration of GaAs PAs for the high-end sub-6GHz phones.

In parallel, photonics has a 5% share of wafer volume, corresponding to a $24 million market.

However, the photonics market will have a double digit CAGR 2019-2025, with GaAs VCSEL technology strongly dominating this market.

In this context, photonics applications represent 32% of the GaAs epiwafer open market. With the transition of LEDs from low-end applications to high-end applications, such as horticulture lighting or automotive, LEDs still represent the highest GaAs wafer market volume with 41% share.

Automotive will be the main driver for visible LEDs and IR LEDs, with a dynamic 6% CAGR envisaged from 2019 to 2025.

GaAs will find another source of growth in the display market, driven by new applications such as microLEDs. Yole analysts forecast the CAGR of the display market to be 19% in the 2019-2025 timeframe