Full-year chip sales fell 9% in 2009, says SIA

LONDON — Global semiconductor sales were $226.3 billion in 2009, a decline of 9 percent from 2008 when sales were $248.6 billion, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA). The full-year figure was as had been expected in the last month of 2009 but much less than had been predicted in the first months of 2009 when the market had appeared to be in free fall.

The three-month average sales figure for December was $22.43 billion, an increase of 29 percent from December 2008, when three-month average sales were $17.41 billion. Sales declined in December by 1.2 percent from November, when sales were $22.71 billion.

The SIA publishes WSTS monthly numbers as a three-month average arguing that this smoothes out the data which would otherwise display the effects of in-quarter reporting that tend to treat March, June, September and December as five-week months.

The Asia-Pacific region achieved a sequential sales growth of 0.6 percent in Decemeber to $12.04 billion. The Americas region pulled further ahead of Japan as the two regions had sales of $3.83 billion and $3.61 billion, respectively. Europe remains the trailing region with a December three-month average chip market of $2.94 billion.

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