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Chip sales continue four-month slide

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CIOL Bureau
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As expected, the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) announced that 2001

global chip sales may not reach the earlier 22 per cent growth rate forecast.

The announcement came as the SIA said January sales fell for a fourth

consecutive month. December chip sales rose 22 per cent from a year ago to $17.9

billion.

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But that is a 2.1 per cent drop from November 2000. October and September

sales were also sequentially lower. For all of 2000, the IC market grew 37 per

cent to $204 billion.. Japan grew the most with a 42 per cent increase. In Asia,

sales rose 38 per cent, while it was 35 per cent in the Americas and 33 per cent

in Europe.

Sales of flash-memory chips more than doubled to $10.6 billion, while

microprocessor sales rose 17 per cent to $31.9 billion. Sales of DRAMs rose 40

per cent to $28.9 billion. Programmable-chip sales climbed 88 per cent to $5.5

billion.

The slower sales growth in the last four months resulted from a combination

of slow unit demand and falling prices as a result of excess inventories chip

firms are trying to clear. "Semiconductor device sales slowed for all

types, but the most severe slowdown was for memory, especially DRAM," Eric

Ross, an analyst with Thomas Weisel Partners, said in a research note.

The Asia Pacific region and Japan saw the sharpest drops in sales in

December, falling 3.1 per cent and 2.1 per cent, respectively. Sales in the

Americas fell 0.9 per cent. Memory chips were the hardest hit among the various

types of microchips.

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