chip sales or the lack thereof

The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) today released the latest worldwide sales statistics. Overall, chip sales for the first four months of this year are up 3.7%; however, the picture does not look all rosy. According to the article, average selling prices for microprocessors, DRAMs, and NAND flash are declining fast and are offsetting any volume increases. While the accompanying chart does not yield any interesting insights, one key takeaway can be found in the published table. Namely, while year over year sales are up only a modest 1.6%, the year over year sales in Europe, Japan, and Asia were actually quite good, but were offset by a 10% decrease in the Americas. Unfortunately, no detailed breakdown of the increases or decreases is provided. However, the SIA will publish their updated forecast for 2007-2009 in a little more than a week, which might yield a few additional insights.