Semiconductor stocks that have been among the most resilient during coronavirus-inspired market upheavals are getting a reevaluation.

Both Gartner Inc. and semiconductor-industry market researcher IC Insights predicted a drop in semiconductor sales for the year due to the coronavirus crisis.

Gartner altered its prediction for total 2020 semiconductor revenue from 12.5% growth to a decline of 0.9%, or $415.4 billion, compared to $419.1 billion during 2019.

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Sales of memory chips, which make up 30% of the market Gartner counts, will mitigate the drop somewhat with growth of 13.9%. That growth will come entirely from the sale of flash-memory NAND chips, which Gartner predicts will increase by 40% during 2020, while sales of random-access memory DRAM will drop 2.4%.

Memory makes up 30% of the total market as defined by Gartner; nonmemory chip revenues will drop 6.1% in Gartner's prediction.

For its part, IC Insights, which reduced its January prediction of 8% growth in the overall market to growth of just 3% in March, estimated in an April 8 report that the total market will, instead, decline in sales by 4% for the year.

The research firm said it based the March prediction on expectations that the majority of the economic impact would stem from market and production disruptions in China. That analysis had to be changed once the virus and its economic impact spread worldwide, causing a potential drop of 2.1% in global GDP.

Raymond James also reduced its estimates for semiconductors used in mobile handsets based on an estimated 20% drop in the sale of smartphones in China and a drop in the sale of Apple Inc. iPhones of 16% during the second quarter. Sales of iPhones will recover enough to end the year with unit sales 9% lower than the year before, followed by a 17% increase in 2021, according to Raymond James. Overall Apple sales will increase 6% during the second quarter, drop by 2% for the year and rebound to 16% during 2021, the report predicted.

The potential for individual chipmakers and component makers are also being reexamined.

A Goldman Sachs report recently downgraded Micron Technology Inc. from buy to neutral and reduced its estimation of normalized EPS for the quarter from $6.70 to $4.85 but left the 12-month price target at $49, implying a 6% upside. Goldman Sachs remains optimistic about sales during the first half of 2020 of the random-access DRAM and flash-memory NAND components that make up the bulk of Micron's sales but is cautious about potential customer pullback due to economic conditions.

Goldman Sachs also predicted that the market for hard-disk drives would see a decline in revenue of 4% CAGR through 2023 to $18 billion per year due to increasing capacity and falling prices for solid-state drives. Solid-state drives can replace hard-disk drives and perform faster and use less battery power because they store data on flash-memory NAND chips rather than on spinning disks. Goldman expects demand for data storage to continue to rise along with data-intensive applications including artificial intelligence and internet of things, setting the stage for growth in the market for solid-state drives of 14% CAGR between 2019 and 2023 when solid-state drive sales will reach $47 billion.

NVIDIA Corp., one of the strongest among the chip stocks, also saw a downgrade from Craig-Hallum from buy to hold and reduced its target price from $300 to $275 due to its valuation, according to a Seeking Alpha report. Shares are up 12% year-to-date compared to an overall 13% decline in the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index.

Jefferson Research also has a hold rating on NVIDIA but notes its strong earnings quality and strong cash flow.

Meanwhile, CFRA rated NVIDIA a buy based on sales that rose 22% during January and sales it projects will rise 15% for 2022, after a 6.8% decline for calendar year 2020. Strength in gaming and data-center markets provided additional confidence for a gross-margin forecast of 64% for 2021 and 65% for 2023 compared to 62% in 2020.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Ltd., the world's largest contract chip builder, posted higher-than-expected revenues for the first calendar quarter based largely on demand for 5G and high-performance computing devices.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing saw revenues of NT$310.6 billion for the first calendar quarter, which is 42% above the same period a year ago, but down 2.09% compared to February.

As for handset-chipmaker MediaTek Inc., an unaudited sales report released April 10 showed NT$22.8 billion in net sales, an increase of 2.27% year over year and 25.3% compared to the previous month. Its operating income rose 15.44% year over year to NT$60.9 billion, likely due to increased demand for PC and server memory chips prompted by the COVID-19 epidemic.