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Technology Stocks : Applied Materials No-Politics Thread (AMAT) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: etchmeister who wrote (15138)	5/30/2005 9:59:02 PM
From: Proud_Infidel	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 25522

Global chip sales fall 1.2% in April, says WSTS EE Times (05/30/2005 11:15 AM EDT) SAN JOSE, Calif. — The IC industry appears to be slowing down. Worldwide semiconductor sales hit $18.15 billion in April, down 1.2 percent from March but up 6.8 percent from the like period a year ago, according to a report from Reuters on Monday (May 30). Citing the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) group, the report said that worldwide IC growth nearly halved in April over the previous month. In total, the IC market grew 12.8 percent in March over February, according to the report. As reported, the three-month average of worldwide sales of semiconductors was $18.43 billion in March 2005, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), up 2.2 percent from the February level of $18.04 billion and up up 13.2 percent from the same period in 2004. The SIA forecast a flat second quarter but hinted that it would soon raise its forecast for 2005 annual semiconductor market growth (see May 2 story). Still, the April figures were below expectations. Handelsbanken Capital Markets previously expected the three-month rolling average of worldwide semiconductor sales for April, due to be announced by the SIA in the next few days, to be $18.53 billion. This would be up from $18.43 billion in March and up 9.1 percent year-on-year (see May 27 story). In the revised and down April figures, the worldwide IC market was "hurt by a 7.3 percent year/year plunge in chip sales to Japan," according to Handelsbanken Capital Markets. "There was scattered strength with PC logic, NAND memory, digital camera chips and wireless infrastructure among the strong areas," according to the firm. "Handset chip sales were weaker than expected, with weak DSP sales to Asia-Pacific and Japan pointing to a market share loss for Chinese and Japanese handset makers. DRAM sales were also weak. Both the PC and handset market saw a shift to more low end products in April, based on processor prices." Handelsbanken Capital Markets is sticking to its overall chip sales forecast of a 3 percent rise in 2005.