Worldwide semiconductor sales fell 45 percent in September as demand sank for personal computers and cell phones, an industry group said.
The rate of decline slowed for the third straight month.
Chip sales dropped to US$10.2 billion from US$18.4 billion in September 2000, the Semiconductor Industry Association said in a statement on Business Wire. Revenue fell 2.5 percent from August, less than the 3.5 percent decline in the previous month.
Consumers and businesses worldwide have curbed spending on PCs and electronic gizmos powered by semiconductors during an economic slump, and analysts predict the chip in-dustry's worst year on record. The rate of decline has slowed in the past three months, and the industry is on track for a recovery as companies use up existing inventories, the SIA said.
"A broad cross-section of products grew on a unit basis during the September quarter," SIA President George Scalise said in the statement. "We expect this trend to continue in the December quarter." Scalise didn't predict when a recovery might occur. The SIA plans to issue its forecast for 2002 next week.
The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index climbed 30.04 to 478.06 on Thursday and has risen 32 percent in the past month.
European chip sales fell 42 percent in September from a year earlier, the SIA said. Revenue fell 59 percent in the Americas, 31 percent in Asia and 43 percent in Japan, the San Jose, California-based trade group said.
Analysts have said the September quarter was probably the low-point for chip sales. Still, they say it could take a while before conditions actually improve again.
"The rate of recovery -- particularly in light of a deteriorating macro-economic environment -- remains a question mark," Doug Lee, a chip analyst at Banc of America Securities, wrote in a note to clients this morning.
Worldwide semiconductor sales may sink a record 34 percent this year after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, according to market researcher IC Insights Inc.
Chipmakers have cut jobs and investments to cope with the prolonged slowdown. Intel, the biggest computer-chip maker, is cutting 5,000 jobs, and archrival Advanced Micro Devices Inc plans to fire 2,300 people.
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