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SIA: Chip Sales Slightly Ahead of Forecast
Staff Reporter -- Electronic News, 6/2/2006
Driven by growing sales of wireless handsets, worldwide sales of semiconductors in April were 8.1 percent higher than in April of 2005, the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) reported Wednesday.
SIA reported global sales in April this year of $19.6 billion, compared with sales in April 2005 of $18.1 billion. The industry group also noted a small decline of 0.4 percent from March, when total sales were $19.7 billon.
"More intense competition led to a sequential decline of 6.1 percent in sales of microprocessors, offsetting modest growth in the rest of the microchip market," SIA President George Scalise said in a statement.
"Microprocessors are the largest single sector of the market, representing approximately 14 percent of total chip sales. Microprocessor sales are up nominally compared to April of 2005. The PC market remains strong, with unit sales of personal computers running 13 to 15 percent ahead of last year's levels. DRAM sales grew by 3.7 percent sequentially and by 7.7 percent over April of 2005 – evidence that the end market remains strong," Scalise added.
The popularity of wireless handsets is largely responsible for the strong sales of analog products, whose total sales were up by 23 percent year-on-year, according to SIA data. Sales of DSPs were up 16.1 percent, and NAND flash devices, which are in high demand for portable electronic devices like MP3 players, were up by nearly 25 percent year-on-year. Sales of MP3 players are growing at a "robust rate" of 50 percent per year, while NOR flash, and optoelectronic devices also continued to show healthy growth, SIA reported.
SIA reported the strongest surge of semiconductor sales in the Asia Pacific region, where April's sales reached $9 billion, up from $7.89 billion a year ago, an increase of 14.4 percent. Sales were up this year to $3.6 billion from last year's $3.2 billion in North and South America, an increase of 11.4 percent. The Japanese market had a growth of 1.4 percent, from $3.7 billion to $3.75 billion, while the European market reported a decline of 2.7 percent, from last year's $3.3 billion to this year's $3.2 billion.
"The overall market growth rate continues to run slightly ahead of the SIA forecast issued last November, which projected growth of 7.9 percent. SIA will issue an updated forecast on June 7," Scalise concluded.
