Semiconductor Industry Boosts 5 Percent in October

The perpetual hunt for a personal computer has excellent effects not only amongst the hardware retailers, but go down the 'food chain' to the silicon wizards. Recent financial reports show that October has been a prolific month for the semiconductor manufacturing industry. The holiday season has unleashed people's hunger for electronics and consumer devices, and boosted global semiconductor sales by 5 percent in a month, the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) reported.

"The increase in worldwide sales of 13.2 percent from the prior quarter reflects historic patterns as the holiday season build began", said SIA President George Scalise. "Demand from the consumer products sector was very robust as sales of semiconductors for traditional consumer applications rose by 35 percent quarter-to-quarter. The two largest demand drivers for semiconductors - PCs and cell phones - continued to show healthy growth."

October sales peaked 2 percent, from $22.6 billion in September to October's $23.1 billion. The strong demand for semiconductors made SIA's forecast come true, as they have predicted a 3.8 percent growth in worldwide sales for 2007.

The high-volume US shopping day, "the Black Friday" has played an important role for semiconductor sales, as early reports from U.S. retailers state. Personal navigation systems, computers and electronic games consoles have been by far the season's bestsellers.

"Strong sales of cell phones and personal electronics products were a major contributor to sharp increases in revenue for NAND flash", said Scalise. "Sales of NAND flash were up by 46.2 percent from the prior quarter and by 58.5 percent in September 2007 compared to September 2006. ASPs for NAND flash increased by nearly 32 percent from the second quarter."