While it’s no secret that the IT market as a whole has been experiencing a tough time, it appears the clouds have parted slightly to shine a ray of hope onto the semiconductor market, which has seen steady growth throughout 2003.
According to the Global Sales Report (GSR) from the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) released Wednesday, July 2003 chip sales figures of US$12.9 billion were up US$400 million from June 2003, and up 10.5 per cent over July 2002 figures of US$11.68 billion.
Contributing to the increase in sales, PC products led the sector with microprocessors up 5.6 per cent and dynamic RAM (DRAM) up 8.2 per cent over June numbers. The SIA attributed the rise to consumer back-to-school computer purchases and the association’s President George Scalise said he expected sequential increases from the consumer, computation and communication sectors over the next four months.
July’s increase marks the fifth consecutive monthly increase in the global semiconductor market, according to the SIA. The Americas increased one per cent over June, while Europe was up 2.3 per cent; Asia Pacific was up 2.9 per cent; and the highest increase was in Japan, up 4.8 per cent on a monthly basis.
The GSR is a three-month average of sales activity, tabulated by the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) organization, which is made up of approximately 66 companies around the world.
For details visit www.sia-online.org.