China’s Q1 chip output grew 20.8% y-o-y to $18.1 billion in the first quarter of 2018, according to the China Semiconductor Industry Association (CSIA).

The output value of its IC design industry sector increased 22% on year to $6 billion in the first quarter of 2018, while that of the IC manufacturing sector climbed 26.2% from a year ago to $5.5 billion.

China’s IC packaging and testing sectors generated a combined $6.1 billion in production value in the first quarter of 2018, representing 19.6% growth on year, according to the statistics.

With SMIC  and Huali Microelectronics (HLMC) ramping up their advanced process output, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company’s (TSMC) Nanjing fab coming online, China’s IC manufacturing sector is set to outpace the IC backend segment in production value around the end of 2018, CSIA said.

The output value of China’s IC manufacturing sector will continue expanding in 2019, when the local memory startups begin running their new fabs, according to industry sources. These startups include Yangtze Memory Technologies (YMTC), Innotron Memory and Jinhua Integrated Circuit.

In addition, it imported $70 billion of ICs in the first quarter of 2018, up 38.7% on year, while the exported ICs came to 18.07 billion in value, rising 34% from a year earlier, according to statistics released by the country’s General Administration of Customs.