WFE market to hit $184 billion by 2030 for equipment and services

Yole Group released its Status of the Wafer Fab Equipment Industry 2025 report, the latest edition of its annual deep dive into one of the semiconductor industry’s most capital-intensive and strategically sensitive segments.

In 2024, the global WFE market reached $140 billion, including $115 billion in equipment shipments and $25 billion in service and support. The total number is aggregated for WFE leaders and smaller, specialized vendors. This figure is projected to rise steadily to $184 billion by 2030, driven principally by external factors such as geopolitical dynamics, while the technological roadmap is well established.

Taguhi Yeghoyan, Principal Analyst, Semiconductor Equipment at Yole Group, said: “The WFE market is a mirror of the semiconductor industry’s complexity. It reflects not only technology needs, but also regional policy, industrial capacity, and the deep segmentation that defines how chips are made.”

Market leaders and segment dynamics

Five companies traditionally dominate the global WFE market. In 2025, the position is no different:

• ASML maintains its leadership following a strong performance in 2023–2024,
• Applied Materials, Lam Research, Tokyo Electron (TEL), and KLA round out the top five.

The WFE market is segmented by highly specialized technologies. In 2024, the market was led by:

Patterning: >26% market share,
Deposition, and etch and clean: strong runners-up at >20% market share,
Metrology and inspection, thinning and CMP, wafer bonders and fab automation

Looking ahead to 2030:

• Most segments will grow moderately at a 2–5% CAGR2024-2030,
• Wafer bonding stands out with >10% CAGR, with a cumulative ’24-’30 revenue at~$8 billion, a reflection of engineering wafer, advanced packaging, and 3D integration demand,
• Patterning remains the largest segment, forecast to reach $240 billion ’24-’30 cumulative revenue

“We live in unprecedented times for semiconductor device processing,” comments Taguhi Yeghoyan from Yole Group. “Equipment purchases are governed more by geopolitics than end-market demand. Despite increasing overcapacity and fab redundancy worldwide combined with low utilization rates and low profits for foundries and IDMs, WFE revenue is still set for growth.”

Regional disparities: Who develops, and who buys?
Geographic breakdowns of WFE revenue generation versus equipment manufacturing reveal stark contrasts:

In 2024, by headquarters:
* USA-headquartered vendors account for 40% of shipment revenue,
* EMEA and Japan each hold about one quarter of the total market,
* Other territories, including Greater China, account for less than 10% of the market.

In terms of WFE manufacturing location:
* EMEA leads with about one third of the total market, driven by the leading semiconductor equipment company ASML as well as ASM International, ZEISS, Nova, IMS Nanofabrication, and Aixtron, among others.
* Japan accounts for about 24% of the total market,
* The US accounts for only 12% despite being home to many WFE giants,
* China, with about 5%, despite accounting for 40% of chipmaker demand globally.

The difference between these numbers lies in the fact that some of the US and EMEA WFE is manufactured in Southeast Asia.

China’s domestic push and market fragmentation
China’s ambition for semiconductor self-sufficiency extends deeply into the WFE sector. In 2024, domestic vendors supplied less than 14% of their internal demand. This means it has an estimated $46 billion market. While state support remains strong, Yole Group forecasts only gradual progress toward ecosystem maturity by 2030.

Factors in slowing growth include:
* Subsystem and component bottlenecks,
* Manufacturing complexity across tool classes,
*  Need for specialized materials and precision assembly, 
* More stringent control of government subsidies.

Despite the challenge, Chinese startups, IPOs, and M&A activity are increasing. Analysts expect to see continued consolidation, strategic alliances, and failures, as the ecosystem begins to realign for scale and technological depth.

Yole Group anticipates stable WFE capex from Greater China throughout the forecast period, supported by a centralized domestic WFE procurement quota. However, despite these measures, domestic WFE supply is unlikely to exceed demand within the current decade.

Key takeaways
* Total WFE market to reach $184 billion by 2030, including $151 billion in equipment shipments and $33 billion in services, with CAGRs of 4.6% and 4.8%, respectively, between 2024 and 2030.
* Competitive landscape: the “Big Five”, comprising ASML, Applied Materials, Lam Research, TEL, and KLA, held almost 70% of the market in 2024.
* Patterning dominates WFE segments with 26% market share in 2024; wafer bonding shows strongest growth
* Regional contrast: 40% of revenue driven by Greater China chipmakers in 2024, but only 5% of WFE manufacturing occurs in China.