News & Analysis
Comment
C VanDorne
"To ensure that the industry’s momentum continues, Congress should remove ...
JohnM555
Chip sales boosted by American strength
Peter Clarke
1/4/2013 5:30 AM EST
LONDON – For the second month in a row, strong growth in the Americas region pushed the three-month average of worldwide semiconductor sales to increase at above typical seasonal rates. The averaged sales reached $25.73 billion in November 2012, up 2.0 percent from October 2012 and up 2.0 percent from November 2011, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association trade group.
The Americas region sales of chips in November showed a sequential growth of 5.1 percent and annual growth of 9.7 percent. Growth in the Americas and Asia-Pacific regions more than made up for weakness in Europe and Japan (see chart below). However, what appears set to be a growth fourth quarter is still unlikely to overcome the weakness of the first nine months of 2012 or overturn the SIA's prediction that the 2012 chip market will contract compared with 2011.
"The global semiconductor industry navigated difficult macroeconomic conditions in 2012, but encouraging growth led by the Americas in recent months has the industry pointed in the right direction heading into 2013," said Brian Toohey, president and CEO of the SIA, in a statement. "To ensure that the industry’s momentum continues, Congress should remove ongoing economic uncertainty by enacting long-term, reliable fiscal policies that boost America’s economic strength and global competitiveness."
Monthly data is given by the SIA as a three-month average although the source of the data, the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics organization, tracks actual monthly data. The SIA and other regional semiconductor industry bodies opt to use averaged data because it smoothes out the actual data that typically show troughs at the beginnings of the quarters and peaks at the ends of the quarters.
Click on image to enlarge.
Global three-month average chip sales for November 2012 by region in U.S. dollar billions. Source SIA.
Related links and articles:
www.sia-online.org
News articles:
Global chip sales stay strong in October
Chip market to fall in 2012, rise in 2013
Chip sector adding jobs faster than overall U.S. economy
|
|
|
|
|
Navigate to related information
Thomas Chongruk
1/4/2013 9:07 AM EST
Great news, hopefully the trend will continue ...
Sign in to Reply
peter.clarke
1/4/2013 9:57 AM EST
@Thomas Chongruk
Not sure which bits you think are great news....there are a few things going on here.
Bear in mind that increased market value can come about from either increased unit sales or increased average selling prices, or a combination of the two.
So a growing market could imply that component buyers might be being asked to pay more for their chips...which, for component buyers, is bad news.
Sign in to Reply
stinky08
1/7/2013 3:29 AM EST
have you checked the number? How come that 3 month average and monthly numbers are the same at 5.03!
People do not read the number and derive quickly something!
Sign in to Reply
ScottenJ
1/4/2013 12:05 PM EST
If I take this data and convert it to actual sales and compare months it looks like October and November are showing 7.2% and 8.3% growth versus the same months last year. That is great news especially when considering the previous 5 months all showed negative "growth".
Not sure I understand what the difference is between month-to-month, year-to-year and three-month-moving average in your chart, particularly when the November number are identical for all three.
Sign in to Reply
stinky08
1/7/2013 3:34 AM EST
good observer! If you look at the number and compared with the text it is so odd!
Sign in to Reply
peter.clarke
1/7/2013 6:07 AM EST
All the figures given by SIA are three-month average figures.
The first set compares the three-month moving average (3MMA) for Nov. 2012 with 3MMA for Oct. 2012.
The second set compares 3MMA for Nov. 2012 with 3MMA for Nov. 2011.
The third set compares 3MMA for Nov. 2012 with 3MMA for Aug. 2011.
SIA does not distribute actual sales numbers because they are prone to peaks and troughs. The WSTS does publish actual numbers.
Sign in to Reply
daleste
1/6/2013 8:55 PM EST
This is a good indicator. I hope it is a sign that the economy is improving.
Sign in to Reply
JohnM555
1/7/2013 12:31 PM EST
I really wanted to find the news below which seems a contradictory indicator:
http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4403711/Semiconductor-equipment-sales--bookings-tumble-again
So, with this information in mind, from the two articles, can we not conclude that the increased sales after Q3 (pre holiday season) in Q4 is a sign of stockpilling? They (the OEMs) read the news, they know the semi test equipment sales is at low so it means the semiconductor manufacturers are depressing their production (situation encountered few years ago) so OEMs did what any of us would do, run to reload their stock of parts. Not that they would see growing economic activity, but simply to refuel the inventory levels which are anyway kept at decreasing quantities.
Sign in to Reply
C VanDorne
1/7/2013 3:24 PM EST
"To ensure that the industry’s momentum continues, Congress should remove ongoing economic uncertainty by enacting long-term, reliable fiscal policies that boost America’s economic strength and global
competitiveness."
I take it SIA president Brian Toohey has a new outlook based on the actual outcome of the so-called fiscal cliff "deal". Instead of what he wanted we got more taxes and a total punt on debt.
Sign in to Reply