Industry Insights: Navigating Economic Uncertainties and Rising Defense Demands

As several major giants in the semiconductor industry successively announced their financial reports for the fourth quarter of 2023, the market's expectant eyes were replaced by confusion. Texas Instruments reported fourth-quarter revenue fell and expected the decline to remain subdued as global manufacturing activity weakened. Its vice president believes its industrial and automotive customers are committed to keeping their inventories down. At the same time, Intel and STMicroelectronics also announced weak revenue and pessimistic expectations for the next quarter, mainly due to seasonal low demand and declining industrial demand. However, it is generally said that demand in the automotive industry has always been stable, and personal consumer electronics will only experience a short-term downturn and continue to narrow the decline.

Jan 25 (Reuters) - L3Harris (LHX.N), Open in new tab fourth-quarter profit beat estimates on Thursday, benefiting from higher demand for weapons and higher global defense spending amid rising security concerns. U.S. defense companies have seen a surge in contracts amid the Russia-Ukraine war, Middle East crises and the specter of Chinese aggression, but ongoing workforce and supply chain disruptions have limited growth.

Let’s come back and talk about the recently highly discussed attack by Houthi armed forces on merchant ships in the Red Sea. Over the past three months, an armed group that grew up from anti-government forces launched riots and attacks on the international shipping lanes of the Red Sea in order to promote its political ideas. From a macroeconomic perspective, this long and sustained harassment will severely impact all efforts made by various countries to combat economic overheating and inflation. But a closer look will reveal that behind these series of events are the urgent need for global defense weapons and concerns about security upgrades.

Why is the United States, as a powerful country, at a loss when facing such a local armed force? It is because the confrontation between the two parties has always been in asymmetric warfare. The survival experience gained in long-term combat with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates tells them how to conduct efficient and economical operations. The Houthi armed forces have been using drones to harass and supply passing merchant ships. Although the United States has used bombers to carry out targeted strikes, due to the excessive flexibility of drone operations, the input-output ratio of the two parties appears to be obviously asymmetric. Regardless of whether there are further ground strikes or other forms of military confrontation in the future, more defense spending is extremely important. Of course, other regions around the world that are deeply involved in war suspicions will also place higher demands on the safety of residents.

An article from the Wall Street Journal describing the situation in Ukraine on January 22 said that if U.S. or European aid does not arrive, Ukraine’s funds will be exhausted within months and the country will Forced to take painful economic measures to keep the government afloat. While political leaders insist these aid packages will eventually pass, timing is critical for Ukraine.

The U.S. Senate is negotiating with Congress on how to support Ukraine's aid package, but also emphasized that much of it is used to support the development of the U.S. domestic military industry and manufacturing. Products related to military weapons have always had extremely long manufacturing cycles and limited production capacity expansion due to manufacturing difficulties and safety barriers.