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CPU sales rose 8.2% during Q2

Good annual, poor sequential gains

Worldwide chips sales continue to show almost negligible growth in June, with sales rising from $12.49 billion to $12.54 billion, an increase of less than half a percentage point.

So reveals the Semiconductor Industry Association's latest monthly numbers. For the quarter as a whole, global chip sales totalled $37.6 billion, up a mere 3.2 per cent on Q1's $36.4 billion, but 10.4 per cent on Q2 2002's $34.1 billion.

Microprocessor sales rose 8.2 per cent year on year during the quarter on the back of an eight per cent annual increase in computer sales. That contrasts with the slight decline seen in the x86 CPU market, as measured by Mercury Research.

During Q2, sales in Japan rose 5.3 per cent on a sequential basis, Asia Pacific was up 5.9 per cent, and Americas was up 3.6 per cent, while sales in Europe declined by 4.1 per cent due to sluggish economic growth in Europe and outsourcing of production to Asia, the SIA said.

On a year-to-year basis, Japan saw sales rise 21.3 per cent, Europe 12.3 per cent and Asia-Pacific 11.8 per cent. The Americas experienced a 3.7 per cent decline.

Looking ahead, the SIA noted that "capacity utilisation on the leading edge - 180nm/0.18 micron and under - has reached 96 per cent. Excess inventory in the supply chain is now at negligible levels with very few exceptions.

"Now that inventory has been worked off, increasing demand as the year progresses will directly generate rising semiconductor sales," said SIA chief George Scalise. ®

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