Chip Sales Grow 58.3% On Year in March

The so-called economic recession, blamed for the dismal performance of the IT industry over the past two years, and especially during 2008, seems to finally be nearing an end, seeing how practically every segment of the market reported on-year and sequential increases for the March quarter. In fact, it seems that chip sales are also doing quite well, having shown a significant increase during March, according to SIA (Semiconductor Industry Association).

It seems that the semiconductor market came quite close to the record sales reported during the month of November, in 2007. For those more interested in numbers, chip sales rose to 23.06 billion, showing a 58.3% increase compared with March 2009. There was also a 4.6% increase compared with February 2010. This enabled quarterly results of $67.56 billion worth of chip sales, more than the $66.7 billion in the fourth quarter of 2009.

According to SIA, the sequential growth was of 7.1% in Europe and of 5.6% in the Americas. As for the Asia pacific region, sales increased by 72%. Performance should keep on being strong throughout the year. Still, on-year increases aren't expected to be so memorable, considering that the state of the economy started improving during the second half of 2009.

"Global sales of semiconductors set a new high for the month of March and were second only to the record sales reported in November 2007," SIA President George Scalise said. "Healthy demand from major end markets coupled with restocking to normal inventory levels contributed to strong first-quarter growth. While we expect that 2010 sales will continue to be strong, the year-on-year growth rate will moderate going forward, reflecting the industry recovery that began in the second half of 2009."

"There are encouraging signs that the global economic recovery will continue, and we remain cautiously optimistic that there is upside potential for growth beyond our November forecast for 2010," Scalise concluded.