April Semiconductor Shipments Stalled By Japan

LONDON — April's stall in semiconductor sales was driven largely by major fall in the amount of chips sold into Japan, which in actual terms was the lowest sales since August 2003, according to the global billings report from the U.S. Semiconductor Industry Association.

Globally actual semiconductor sales were $16.68 billion — considerably lower than the $18.15 billion three-month average put out by the SIA on Tuesday (May 31).

Worldwide semiconductor sales in April were down 3.7 percent compared with $20.56 billion in March 2005 and up 4.7 percent compared with $15.93 billion in April 2004, the SIA's statistics show. Worldwide semiconductor sales in April were the smallest monthly sales since July 2004.

Worldwide semiconductor sales in the first third of 2005 were $71.78 billion, 10.8 percent ahead of $64.80 billion of semiconductors sold in the first four months of 2004. However, with the monthly year-on-year growth figure collapsing achieving growth in 2005 will depend on a change of trend in the second-half of the year.

Japan's sales in April 2005 were $3.34 billion, lower than the $3.60 billion posted in April 2004 and the lowest since the country recorded $3.12 billion in sales in July 2003. The America's region scored $2.92 billion in April, up 3.9 percent on the same month a year before; Europe scored 2.95 billion, up 4.6 percent and the Asia Pacific region's sales were $7.46 billion, up 11.5 percent on a year ago.

The SIA and other regional industry groups publicize sales statistics gathered by World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) as the three-month moving averages of monthly sales activity, rather than the actual numbers. The SIA calculates averages to smooth out variations due to companies' sales reporting calendars, which often make March, June, September and December five-week months thereby inflating those month's numbers.