However, the rest of the Asia-Pacific region, with averaged sales of $6.87 billion, was up 9.1 percent from averaged sales of $6.29 billion in August and this strong growth in the world's largest chip market helped to drive a strong third quarter for the chip market. Overall the three-month average of global sales of semiconductors rose to $20.64 billion in September, up 8.2 percent from an upwardly revised $19.07 billion in August, and down 10.1 percent from September 2008.

The Americas region, which had been leading the chip market recovery, was this month's laggards with 6.2 percent sequential growth taking its averaged market from $3.25 billion to $3.46 billion. In contrast, the European region, which has been the poorest performing region during 2009, turned in strong growth of 8.8 percent albeit from a low base. Its averaged September sales were $2.62 billion. Japan's performance was close to the global average with sequentially growth of 8.0 percent taking its averaged September sales up to $3.62 billion.

ESIA publishes numbers collated by the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics as a three-month average in line with the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA). The SIA argues 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.

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September averaged global chip sales show 8.2% growth

Americas region continues to lead semiconductor recovery

European chip recovery lags behind other regions