Germany's supply of chips could be seriously at risk due to geopolitical crises, according to widespread opinion in the business community, as revealed by a recent representative Bitkom survey. Ninety-two per cent of companies that work intensively with semiconductors consider China's threats against Taiwan to be particularly worrying with regard to the supply of semiconductors in Germany.
According to the survey, only 37% of companies that use semiconductors still trust the US to continue supplying chips, with 12% having "great confidence" and 25% having "rather great confidence". In contrast, 48% have "rather little confidence" and 14% "no confidence at all" in the United States. These are the results of a representative survey commissioned by the digital association Bitkom among 503 companies with 20 or more employees in the manufacturing, IT and telecommunications sectors – industries in which semiconductors are heavily used.
"Semiconductors are at the centre of international economic conflicts," says Bitkom President Dr Ralf Wintergerst. "We therefore need a strong ecosystem of companies around semiconductors in Germany and Europe. This will enable us to reduce dependencies and make us less vulnerable to blackmail."
91% of the companies surveyed use semiconductors. For 80% of them, semiconductors are indispensable for their own business. Those who have already purchased semiconductors in 2025 or are still doing so obtain them primarily from companies headquartered in the USA (72%) and China (63%). Semiconductor companies headquartered in Germany (54%) rank third, followed by Japan (36%) in fourth place. 28% source their semiconductors from companies based in Taiwan, 27% from South Korean companies and 26% from the rest of the EU.
"Semiconductors are found in smartphones, medical technology, cars, industrial plants, data centres and communication networks – without them, many areas of our lives would come to a standstill," says Wintergerst. "Their manufacture is based on a highly complex global production network in which many countries are closely interlinked."
Not only China and the USA, but also Taiwan plays a central role in the development and production of the most powerful chips. A conflict over Taiwan would therefore massively disrupt the global chip supply far beyond the region.
As a result, 90% of the companies surveyed demand that Germany end unilateral dependencies in the supply of semiconductors. 86% consider a strong semiconductor ecosystem to be important for national security, and 85% consider it crucial for Germany's digital sovereignty. Companies continue to view the status quo of semiconductor supply as difficult, albeit less problematic than in 2023 and 2021. For example, 60% of those who have already purchased semiconductors this year had difficulties in procurement – in 2023, this figure was 89%, and in 2021, 81%.
Chips have an average delivery delay of four months.
However, the difficulties remain manifold: 96% of companies affected by procurement problems are suffering from delivery delays, and 91% are facing price increases. For 84%, certain components are partially unavailable, and for 75%, delivery quantities have been reduced. Two-thirds (67%) are struggling with export or import restrictions. The average delivery delay for semiconductors in Germany is currently around four months. This means that the delay has eased slightly, but remains at a high level: two years ago it was five months, and in 2021 it was still 6.5 months.
Wintergerst: "The situation on the semiconductor market remains tense – even though the worst bottlenecks of recent years have been resolved. Delivery delays, price jumps and export restrictions remain obstacles for German industry. In order to become more independent in the long term, more European manufacturing capacity, strategic partnerships and targeted measures that take the entire value chain into account are needed. The fact that the German government wants to tackle this problem with its own microelectronics strategy is therefore an important step."
Companies expect supply situation to remain critical in 2026
There is considerable uncertainty and indecision among companies that use semiconductors when looking ahead to the coming year. 42% expect the supply situation in 2026 to be either very critical (5%) or somewhat critical (37%). 55% expect the supply situation to be fairly good (53%) or very good (2%).
