SIA: 2005 Set Semi Sales Record

Online staff -- Electronic News, 2/2/2006

Worldwide sales of semiconductors set a new record of $227.5 billion last year, a 6.8 percent increase from $213 billion in 2004, the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) reported today.

For December, chip sales declined by 2.2 percent sequentially to $19.95 billion from $20.41 billion in November, in line with historical seasonality, but 8.6 percent higher than December 2004.

Worldwide sales for the Q4 2005 were $59.86 billion, up 2 percent from Q3 sales of $58.67 billion and up by 8.6 percent from sales of $55.10 billion in the Q4 2004, SIA data showed.
 
“2005 turned out to be a very good year for the semiconductor industry," said SIA President George Scalise in a statement. “Despite record energy prices and an unprecedented series of natural disasters, worldwide demand for semiconductors increased in all end markets.”
 
Consumer electronics products such as cellular phones, digital cameras, digital televisions and MP3 players, drove increased demand for microchips. Personal computer sales were the largest single market segment for semiconductors, with Q4 2005 unit shipments up 17 percent year-on-year, SIA reported.
 
Geographically, the semiconductor market still continues to grow overseas in the Asia-Pacific region in general and in China in particular, registering record sales up 20 percent year-on-year to $9.3 billion in December 2005.

“This region represented 46.6 percent of the global market for microchips at year end. The largest share of the market is in China, which has become the world's leading manufacturer of electronics products,” said Scalise.
 
SIA forecasts that worldwide sales of semiconductors will grow by 7.9 percent this year to $245 billion.

"The outlook for the semiconductor industry remains robust. For the first quarter of 2006, we expect sequential change in the total market will be in the range of plus or minus 1 percent. The overall economic climate continues to be healthy, excess inventories are not an issue, and production capacity is in line with expected demand. We expect that the market for semiconductors will continue to grow at a compound annual rate of 10 percent -- a remarkable rate for a $227-billion-dollar industry,” Scalise concluded.