14 DAY TRIAL // Just like most industries, the computer and general electronics consumer ones are expected to post lower sales during the summer and high figures in the winter period when the Christmas shopping spree acts as a global catalyst increasing sales across the chart. This time, something went a little different as various computer and general electronics manufacturing companies posted record sales in August while stating that they have even higher hopes for the holiday season.
According to the Semiconductor Industry Association, SIA for short, that was cited by the news site infoworld, the last summer month was a big success as the worldwide chip sales rose by 4.5 percent over the same period last year and they hit the $21.6 billion mark during that month. Some market analysts suggest that this increase is over the historical norms and trends and even more, August has been the third month in a row when global chip sales were higher than the seasonal norm.
Traditionally, August is the month when inventories are replenished by manufacturing companies in order to have enough parts for the upcoming holiday season when most companies are expecting very high sales of personal computer systems, mobile phones and other electronic based gadgets. As 40 percent of all the produced chips are aimed at the personal computer systems, a global high sale of them automatically translates into strong computer sales.
As the price for NAND flash memory solutions also rose after a long period of decline, their sales also soared because more and more electronic devices are now coming with a form or another of integrated data storage. As the retail prices for the NAND based memory chips were up 48 percent compared to a year ago and 19 percent higher than July, this dramatic increase also helped boost the total figure registered by most chip manufacturing companies.
Apart from the NAND flash memories, the global personal computer systems sales rose sharply too as they registered a 12.5 percent growth year-over-year during the second quarter, while the Asian part of the world posted even higher figures, approaching 20 percent. On a global scale, the PC increasing sales are driven by the expansion of the emerging markets and by the rise in popularity and affordability of the portable computer systems, which are expected to become more sought after than desktop computer systems.