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October was best month ever for global chip sales: SIA

Global semiconductor sales topped US$20 billion in October, the highest one-month revenue total on record, the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) said.

Computer-chip sales rose 6.8 percent to US$20.05 billion from US$18.8 billion in October last year, the San Jose, California-based industry group said yesterday in a statement.

The group said demand for consumer electronics and personal computers has kept chip sales on track to rise 6.8 percent to US$228 billion this year.

For the past 18 months, consumer-electronics devices have accounted for more than half of semiconductor sales, the group said. October marked the first US$20 billion month in the approximately 25 years that the Semiconductor Industry Association has tracked sales, spokesman John Greenagel said in an interview. He said consumer demand will have broad effects.

"Consumer sales has changed the dynamics of the industry and will make it more sensitive" to economic forces that affect the average person, Greenagel said. Military-related uses generated the most chip sales in the industry's early years, to be eclipsed by business computers and communications systems.

If current sales trends continue, this year is set to beat last year's record US$213 billion in revenue, Greenagel said. In 2003, global sales were US$166.4 billion, up from US$140.7 billion in 2002 and US$139 billion in 2001, when the chip industry dropped from 2000's US$204.4 billion, a record that stood until last year, SIA statistics show.

The data show that in each of the past 10 months through October, sales have grown from a year ago, except in June.

"A sharp rebound in consumer confidence was reflected in strong sales of a broad range of consumer products," association president George Scalise said in the statement.

Purchases of cellular telephones, digital music players and televisions boosted chip sales, the industry group said.
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