Francis --
I know it is a little early for Chow time but I thought this one needed extra emphasis.
The Asian chip industry is beginning to show signs of recovery.
pubs.cmpnet.com
Asian chip sales up in April;
overall sales down slightly
By Will Wade
SAN JOSE -- The Asian chip industry is beginning to show signs of recovery after sales in the region grew 4.1 % in April, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association's latest global sales report. The survey, released here today, says that sales in Asia helped to offset declines in the rest of the world, with total consumption dipping 0.5% from March.
"With a second consecutive month of increased sales in Asia-Pacific, we're seeing the beginnings of a recovery in that marketplace," said Doug Andrey, SIA's director of information systems and finance.
"We are expecting all markets to gain momentum in the third quarter."
The Americas showed the steepest decline from the previous month, with a 2% fall in April. Japan dropped 1.8% and Europe fell 1.5%. The total chip market declined slightly to $10.39 billion.
As reported in the SIA's annual semiconductor sales forecast (see June 3 story ), the Internet is proving to be a strong technology driver, leading to higher sales of PCs and networking systems. Digital signal processing is also a hot technology, appearing in nearly the entire spectrum of electronic devices. DSP sales were up 33.6% last year and are expected to grow another 23% this year.
The SIA's report is the result of data collected by the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics group. Not surprisingly, this year's second quarter is a poor showing compared to stronger past years, and April 1998 is flat to down compared to last April. Chip sales last month were up 0.5% in Europe and 1.4% in Asia, compared to April 1997, while sales in the Americas were down 11.6%, and down 14.1% in Japan.
Herb |
