August semi sales inch up, SIA cautious on near-term outlook

"Sales of personal computers and cellular handsets continued to be the principal drivers of demand. Continuing price pressure on DRAMs and NAND flash memory dampened overall industry growth. Excluding memory products, industry sales were up by 11.4% year-on-year in August. Year-to-date sales were 4.5% ahead of last year and remain in line with the SIA mid-year forecast of 4.3% growth in 2008," commented SIA President George Scalise.

By Ann Steffora Mutschler, Senior Editor -- Electronic News, 10/2/2008

With continuing price pressure on DRAMs and NAND flash memory dampening overall industry growth, San Jose-based Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) reported that August sales of semiconductors on a global basis grew by a modest 5.5% to $22.7 billion from August 2007 sales of $21.5 billion, and were 2.4% higher than July sales of $22.2 billion.

On a year-to-date basis, sales from January through August totaled $170.2 billion, an increase of 4.5% from the same period of 2007 when sales were $162.9 billion.

“Sales of personal computers and cellular handsets continued to be the principal drivers of demand. Continuing price pressure on DRAMs and NAND flash memory dampened overall industry growth. Excluding memory products, industry sales were up by 11.4% year-on-year in August. Year-to-date sales were 4.5% ahead of last year and remain in line with the SIA mid-year forecast of 4.3% growth in 2008,” SIA President George Scalise (pictured at left) commented in a statement.

The SIA also pointed to a recent Credit Suisse report that predicts PC unit sales to grow by more than 13% in 2008.

On a unit basis, sales of semiconductors grew by 9.1% year-on-year in August, a modest slowdown from July, while worldwide unit sales of cellular handsets remained strong particularly in emerging markets. Unit sales of cellular handsets are forecast to grow about 10% this year, with the strongest growth again predicted to come from emerging markets.

Commenting on the situation with the US financial system, Scalise concluded, “With consumer purchases now driving more than half of semiconductor sales, consumer confidence is essential to the entire supply chain of the global technology sector; thus it is essential for Congress to move swiftly to restore stability to the US financial system.”

The SIA Global Sales Report

  
Source: SIA

The GSR is a three-month moving average of sales activity, and is tabulated by the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics. The moving average is a mathematical smoothing technique that mitigates variations due to differences in companies’ financial calendars.