Global Semiconductor Sales To Bounce Back
The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) says that
worldwide sales of semiconductors reached $24.1 billion in April 2012,
representing a 3.4 %increase from the prior month when sales were $23.3
billion.
According to the organisation, this marks the largest
month-over-month growth for the industry since May 2010. However, sales from
April 2012 were 2.9 percent below the April 2011 total of $24.8 billion.
What's more, the 2012 year-to-date sales totalled
$93.7 billion, a decrease of 5.9 percent from the year-to-date figures at the
same time last year when it was $99.5 billion. All monthly sales numbers
represent a three-month moving average.
"The outlook for the global semiconductor industry continues to be one of cautious optimism," points out Brian Toohey, president & CEO, Semiconductor Industry Association. "We are beginning to see an encouraging trend of modest, sequential growth and we anticipate this trend will continue during the rest of this year, with stronger growth predicted for 2013 and beyond. But that optimism continues to be tempered by macroeconomic factors."
On a regional basis, semiconductor sales increased in the Americas by 5.6 percent, the Asia Pacific region by 5.4 percent and Europe by 1.8 percent over a three-month moving average. However, in Japan, revenues fell slightly by 1.8 percent.
SIA says it has also endorsed the World Semiconductor
Trade Statistics (WSTS) organisation's Spring 2012 global semiconductor sales
forecast, which projects that the industry's worldwide sales will hit $301
billion in 2012. This represents a 0.4 percent increase over the 2011 sales
total.
By region, WSTS projects year-over-year growth in the Americas of 3.2 percent, 1.7 percent in Japan and a miniscule 0.1 percent in the Asia Pacific region for 2012. A slight downturn of 3.5 percent is predicted in Europe.
According to the WSTS forecast, after 2012, the industry is expected to grow at a significantly faster pace across all regions,. WSTS predicts 7.2 percent growth globally for 2013 ($322 billion in total sales) and 4.4 percent growth for 2014 to $337 billion.