European chip market shows 18% annual growth in April
The European three-month average of global chip sales in April was about $2.89 billion, down 5.6 percent on the same period in 2014. But when measured in euro currency the same data results in an 18.3 percent rise. This is because the euro has fallen 21.9 percent against the dollar compared with the exchange rate a year ago. For the first four months of 2015 the European region’s cumulative sales are running 17.1 percent ahead of the year before when measured in euros but have fallen by 5 percent measured in US dollars.
Globally the general trend in April – in dollar terms – was as it has been for many months: that the Americas region is growing fastest followed by Asia-Pacific region while Europe is contracting but not by as much as Japan, which is enduring both currency headwinds and a complete restructuring of its chip vendor base.
The three-month average for worldwide semiconductor sales were $ 27.602 billion in April, up 4.8 percent compared with the same period a year before.
Monthly data is given by the SIA as a three-month average, although the WSTS organization tracks actual monthly data. The SIA and other regional semiconductor industry bodies opt to use averaged data because it evens out the actual data that typically show troughs at the beginnings of quarters and peaks at the ends of quarters.
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