2023: The Year in Parts

A Review of 2023 Supply Chain Trends and Topics

A balance of challenges and advancements characterized the electronic component landscape in 2023. While 2022 was a year plagued by parts shortages, 2023 saw a period of ample component availability and retreating demand for most categories. There were still shortages for some specific categories (most notably in some sub-categories of passive components and power products), which continued to make sourcing some parts challenging. 

By many accounts, inflation was tamed during 2023 and recession fears lessened, with a widespread belief that the economy may have a successful “soft landing” instead of a recession. Yet new global threats emerged in 2023 that pose challenges as we move into 2024. According to the World Economic Forum, attacks on trade routes in the Red Sea region, continuing trade upheaval caused by the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and pandemic-related supply chain malaise have the potential to re-tangle global supply chains.

Octopart experienced significant growth and industry adoption in 2023, with more than 15 million unique visitors to the Octopart website, an impressive increase of 65% from 2022’s 9 million unique visitors. With more than 83 million parts from 10,845 different manufacturers available from 685 distributors, you can understand how Octopart site data provides a wealth of information to help us see the direction of the electronic component industry. Let’s look at the numbers from 2023 and see what trends come to light. 

Overall Industry Supply and Demand

First, let’s look at the big-picture supply-demand scenario of 2023 with data from the Electronic Design to Delivery Index (EDDI) from Spectra, a free monthly report covering electronics industry supply and demand trends. See Figures 1 and 2 below.

Figure 1 – Except for a slight dip down mid-year and in December, supply increased throughout the year, ending significantly higher.

Figure 2 - Demand declined steeply in the first quarter and then rebounded, finishing the year a little above where it started.

The data provides insight into why electronic component supply shortages mostly evaporated by mid-year due to the significant increase in component inventories combined with a steep drop in demand in the year's first four months.                            

Octopart Search Stats & Trends

Now, let’s explore search metrics for the year. We define searches as the number of times a search resulted in a search results page loading, while “most common search term” refers to the term that appeared most often in queries.  

Total Searches Performed: 73,983,863

The total number of searches performed on the Octopart search engine in 2023 was just shy of 74 million searches. This is a decrease of 10 million searches (or 11%) compared to the previous year. We attribute this reduction in search volume to the reduced demand and abundant supply of most components throughout the year, as shown by the EDDI graphs above. With this scenario, engineers and designers generally find what they need with fewer searches. 

Most Searched MPN: “VS-50RIA120”

The manufacturer part number “VS-50RIA120” from Vishay was searched for 579,573 times, earning it the top searched MPN for 2023. The Vishay VS-50RIA120 is a type of Silicon Controlled Rectifier (SCR), also known as a thyristor. SCRs are widely used for controlling and managing high power in devices like voltage regulators, motor controllers and inverter circuits. 

The part’s popularity was driven by increased demand for thyristors in the growth areas of automotive, renewable energy and industrial automation applications, combined with the part’s availability, competitive pricing and excellent performance characteristics. 

Most Common Search Term: resistor

“Resistor” was the most common search term of 2023, supplanting “capacitor,” which held the top position for the previous three years. Both resistors and capacitors are passive components with widespread popularity and common use in various products. 

A Deep Dive into Passive Components

EDDI data illustrates the unique supply-demand situation for passive components in 2023. Figures 3 and 4 show supply for passive components overall declining in 2023, except for aluminum electrolytic capacitors, which had supply increasing over the year.

Figure 3 – The supply of passive components declined significantly in 2023, declining from January until September, increasing for two months of Q3, and then declining in December.

Figure 4 – Most all categories of passive components saw supply decline in 2023, except aluminum electrolytic capacitors (purple line), which had increasing supply throughout the year.

Figure 5 shows the demand situation for passives in 2023, with a decline from the start of the year until April, then increasing demand that peaked in August and then held mostly steady into the end of the year. Overall, demand increased over the year, and this, combined with decreasing supplies, made sourcing certain passive components difficult. We expect this challenge will continue into 2024. 

Figure 5 – Demand for all passive component categories fluctuated over 2023, with a decline from the start of the year until April, then increasing demand that peaked in August and held steady into the end of the year.

Figure 6 shows passive component demand with two years of data, going back to 2022, illustrating the longer-term trend. Demand for passive components declined throughout 2022 and for the first four months of 2023 and then quickly rebounded back to – and ended the year near to – where demand was at the start of 2022.

Figure 6 – This EDDI graph shows two years of demand index data for passive components (2022 - 2023).

In summary, the passive electronic components market in 2023 was characterized by a declining supply for most categories while demand fluctuated. The exception was the sub-category of aluminum electrolytic capacitors, which saw supply increase over the year.  As we look at the next few years, the passive components market is forecast to grow 5.4% (CAGR) from 2022 to 2027, according to Research and Markets.

Total Number of Parts Added to Octopart: 9,109,374

More than 9.1 million new parts were added to the Octopart search engine in 2023, bringing the total to more than 83 million. This is a significant 40% increase in the number of new products added compared to the 6.5 million parts added in 2022, a year in which the global shortage of raw materials, transportation constraints and other obstacles made it difficult for manufacturers to release new products. 

The increase in new parts in 2023 demonstrates how well the industry’s production capabilities and innovation have rebounded from the challenges of previous years. 

While many competitors artificially inflate their calculations of such numbers, here at Octopart, we only report on actual new parts. We diligently remove duplicates and name variables to provide a truly accurate and reliable account of new parts added to our search engine. (Please note that this metric represents parts introduced to the Octopart site by our manufacturer and distribution partners, not the total number of new electronic components introduced in the industry at large.)

Total Number of BOMs: 227,662

Octopart users took advantage of our BOM Tool by uploading more than 227,000 bills of materials (BOMs) in 2023, an increase of 11% compared to 2022. The Octopart BOM Tool makes component procurement easier by matching your parts with the more than 83 million parts in our database, and it allows users to customize their BOMs according to their preferences and share them across teams and departments.

The Most Popular Products of 2023

We determine the popularity of component categories on Octopart by compiling the number of views and search results for each category and subcategory. We also take into account which categories and subcategories experienced the most growth activity over the year, giving us a well-rounded picture of what our users are looking for. With that in mind, here are the most popular parts for 2023:

Top 5 Most Viewed Product Categories

A few notes on how things have changed over the past year in this area: 

• Connectors took dominance on the list this year, owning the #2, #3 and #5 spots (power connectors, terminal blocks and circular connectors), compared to taking just the #2 spot last year.
• The high-level product categories of integrated circuits and discrete semiconductors, which were #4 and #5 on last year’s list, were replaced in 2023 by the specific product subcategories of clock & timing products and thyristors.

Takeaways

We spend a lot of time thinking about trends in the components industry here at Octopart, but we refrain from making conclusions not supported by the data. Also, the information presented here is not intended to be a definitive statement about the state of the industry. We’ll leave such conclusions to you. With that said, from our point of view, the electronics industry’s innovation and resilience shined in 2023. 

Despite demand dipping and supply growing, some part shortages will persist into 2024, calling for multi-sourcing and distribution partners for more stable operations. There is an increasing belief among some industry participants that there will be an excess of semiconductor inventory in 2024, driven by lower customer demand. However, others believe that emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) could continue to push demand growth, avoiding inventory excess​.

That’s a wrap for our look back at 2023. We’d love to know what you think. Drop us a line at contact@octopart.com or on Twitter and be sure to subscribe to our monthly newsletter while you’re at it.