Pushed by PC sales, worldwide sales of semiconductors increased to $12.9 billion in July 2003, up from the $12.5 billion reported in June and a 10.5 percent increase from July 2002, the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) reported today.
 
“July’s sales reflect the continued strengthening of the semiconductor market and we believe that we will exceed our forecasted sequential growth of 5.9 percent for the third quarter,” George Scalise, SIA's president, said in a statement. “With seasonal third quarter patterns, such as consumer builds for back-to-school and the year-end holidays, we expect sequential increases from the consumer, computation and communications sectors.”
 
The group noted that July – which was the fifth consecutive month to increase its revenue – saw strong PC related product sales with microprocessors up 5.6 percent and DRAMs up 8.2 percent over June. 

The boost in sales can be attributed to the beginnings of a business upgrade cycle and the seasonal back-to-school PC buys. In addition, SIA said the consumer sector continued its recent strength with optoelectronics increasing 5.3 percent and flash up 5.7 percent over last month.
 
Capacity utilization at the leading edge has reached 94 percent, according to SIA data.  “We believe that excess inventory in the supply chain is now negligible and in-line with normal patterns,” Scalise said.
 
In the month of July, sales in Japan rose 4.8 percent on a monthly basis to $3.12 billion, Asia/Pacific was up 2.9 percent to $4.81 billion, Europe up 2.3 percent reaching $2.47 billion, and the Americas increased 1 percent over June, coming in at $2.51 billion

By: DocMemory
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