Global chip market up sequentially in August

 

The chip market slump is attributable to multiple causes including the end of a high-priced memory cycle, a slowing of consumer electronics replacement cycles effecting smartphone and other sales, and US-China trade tension.

 

Of all the geographical semiconductor markets America's region continued to show the largest year-on-year fall, being down 28.8 percent. All the regions suffered contractions in sales year-on-year but Europe suffered the least dip at 8.6 percent.

 

"While worldwide semiconductor sales remain well behind the totals reached in 2018, month-to-month sales increased in two consecutive months for the first time in nearly a year," said John Neuffer, CEO of SIA, in a statement. "Sales into the Americas market were mixed, decreasing significantly year-to-year but increasing more than any other region on a month-to month basis."

 

Sales were down on a year-to-year basis, across all regional markets: Europe (-8.6 percent), Asia Pacific/All Other (-9.2 percent), Japan (-11.5 percent), China (-15.7 percent), and the Americas (-28.8 percent). The trend in this first derivative is for the Americas and China to be worsening slightly while Japan and Asia-Pacific are improving and Europe is flat.

 

 

Three-month average of chip sales by geographic region for August and July 2019. Source: SIA/WSTS.

 

Monthly data is given by the SIA as a three-month average although the source of the data, 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 shows troughs at the beginnings of quarters and peaks at the ends of quarters.