LONDON? -- A number offactors are likely to have contributed to soft January chip sales according toBruce Diesen, an analyst at Carnegie Group (Oslo, Norway).
The net effect would have been that January's actual globalchip sales were 15% below what they were in January 2011. However, as one ofthe influences is the movement of the Chinese New Year from February in 2011 toJanuary 2012 there is hope of a better-than-usual February to follow.
Still, other factors remain problematic. These factorsinclude: PC weakness and higher costs due to the continued aftermath offlooding in Thailand and observed weakness in the mobile phone handset andautomotive business sectors.
The three-month average of global chip sales for January, asreported by the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) organization, islikely to be $22.7 billion, according to Diesen's data models. This wouldcompare with a three-month average of $23.83 billion reported by WSTS forDecember 2011. Actual sales in January are set to be between 15 and 16% belowwhere they were in January 2011, Diesen said.
"Although several chip makers indicated the inventorycorrection in Q4 has ended, our early indicator indicates that it continuedinto Q1," Diesen said.
Diesen said that both South Korea's broader technologyexports and Japan's chip exports were down sharply in January. Korean handsetexports were down 39% year-on-year partly due to the holiday shift fromFebruary in 2011 to January in 2012.
Diesen's forecast for growth in the semiconductor market inUS dollar terms in 2012 is a 2% increase.
This story was originally posted by EE Times.
