The March figures for semiconductor sales data have been better than expected. The European market did especially well with a 4.8% increase on a year over year base and in comparison with other regions.
Sequentially, the first quarter was down 3.0%, which is in line with the historical pattern. With this value the European market performed better than the world market.
The drivers for these developments have been general purpose products with wide applications like microcontrollers, memories, standard logic and discretes.
Microprocessors showed a dip across all regions, still a result of adjustments started in the previous months and which are still happening on the markets.
From an application point of view, automotive performed well with increasing sales for both year over year and sequentially. In contrast, lower sales were reported for communication and consumer products sequentially over the last quarter of 2006.
European semiconductor sales in March 2007 amounted to US$ 3.391 B according to the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS), up 1.5% versus the previous month.
This corresponds to a 4.8% growth compared to the same month last year. On a YTD basis semiconductor sales increased by 4.8% as well as versus the same period in the year 2006.
On a worldwide basis, semiconductor sales in March 2007 were US$ 20.339 B, up 1.0% versus the previous month. This results in an increase of 3.2% versus the same month in 2006 and on a YTD basis it results in a growth rate of 3.2%.
