Europe improves as China drives chip market
The three-month average for global chip sales in October was $27.06 billion, an increase of 7.2 percent from October 2012, according to the European Semiconductor Industry Association, which quoted data compiled by the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics organization.
The largest year-on-year growth occurred in the China where the market is up by nearly 50 percent, followed by the Americas region where annual growth was 20 percent. Europe, with October averaged sales of $3.03 billion, was able to beat the global average with 7.4 percent year-on-year growth while Japan continues to languish, as it has done all year. Avergaed chip sales in Japan were $3.105 billion, down 12.1 percent on the same month a year before (see table below).
Monthly data is given by the ESIA as a three-month average, although the source of the data, the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) organization, tracks actual monthly data. The ESIA and other regional semiconductor industry bodies opt to use averaged data because it smoothes out the actual data that typically show troughs at the beginnings of the quarters and peaks at the ends of the quarters.
Global year-to-date sales in 2013 are up 3.9 percent while for China they are up 27.4 percent, the ESIA said. European sales for the first ten months of 2013 are running 3.4 percent ahead of the same period in 2012. The October sales figure represents the fifth month of consecutive growth in Europe.
The ESIA said strong demand in the area of sensors and actuators, discrete semiconductors, optoelectronic devices, micro-controller units and memories drove the October growth in Europe.
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