Processors Toolkit

Chip market heats up in July

Ed Frauenheim CNET News.com

Published: 03 Sep 2003 15:55 BST

In a sign of continued growth in the chip industry, global sales of semiconductors rose to $12.9bn (£8.21bn) in July, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association.

The July sales figure compared with $12.5bn in June, and marked the fifth consecutive monthly increase, the industry group said. Sales also were up 10.5 percent from the July 2002 total of $11.68bn.

"July's sales reflect the continued strengthening of the semiconductor market and we believe that we will exceed our forecasted sequential growth of 5.9 percent for the third quarter," SIA president George Scalise said in a statement.

The increase in chip sales comes amid other hopeful news for the information technology industry. IT budgets should grow 2 percent in 2004, according to a survey of 500 IT executives released on Tuesday by AMR Research. In August, research firm IDC said it expected IT spending would increase 26 percent by 2007 to $1.1tn.

In the chip world, PC-related products were the strongest sector in July, according to the SIA. Sales of microprocessors were up 5.6 percent from June, while sales of dynamic random access memory devices (DRAMs) rose 8.2 percent month-over-month. The SIA attributed the boost in PC-related products to the start of a business upgrade cycle and seasonal back-to-school PC purchases.

The consumer sector, which includes DVDs and digital cameras, also remained healthy, the SIA said. Sales of optoelectronics semiconductors climbed 5.3 percent from June, and sales of flash memory chips rose 5.7 percent, the association said

In Japan, sales rose 4.8 percent on a monthly basis, while Asia Pacific was up 2.9 percent, Europe up 2.3 percent, and the Americas up 1 percent, according to the SIA.