Chip sales coming out of recession in Europe................................
yahoo.com
Monday December 15 3:24 PM EST
Europe's Components Market Seen Growing In '98
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Europe's electronic components market is set to grow 9.4 percent in 1998 as the economy improves in Germany and other areas, the European Electronic Component Manufacturers Association (EECA) forecast today.
The market is expected to grow 4.4 percent in 1997, following a rise of only 2.8 percent in 1996, it said in a statement.
"As Germany and other parts of Europe are now moving solidly out of recession, we expect the European electronic components market to show more rapid growth than in recent years," EECA president Harry Tee said in the statement.
Most of the growth in value terms has been generated by semiconductor components, despite price reductions for DRAM memory chips, EECA said.
"Continuous price erosion across all sectors means that volumes of components shipped have again increased," it said.
EECA's forecast was based on data for Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden.
The market in those countries was expected to reach a value of $42.8 billion in 1998, with Germany in the lead at $14.6 billion followed by Britain at $11 billion.
Sweden has the fastest-growing market while mobile communications is the fastest-growing sector for electronic components, EECA said.
The computing sector, however, remains the biggest user of components in Europe, it added. |
