Gift Buying Drove November Chip SalesGift Buying Drove November Chip Sales

LONDON — A robust holiday gift-buying season drove the global semiconductor market to a record high in November, according to the U.S. Semiconductor Industry Association.

On Tuesday (Jan. 3) the SIA confirmed an earlier statement by its European equivalent, that the three-month average of global chip sales went up to $20.40 billion in November.

The regional industry groups publicize sales statistics collated by the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics organization as the three-month moving averages of monthly sales activity, rather than the actual numbers. They do this 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.

“Strong holiday season sales of consumer products such as cell phones, digital cameras, and MP3 players drove record sales of semiconductors in November,” said SIA President George Scalise, in a statement. “Sales of flash memory devices, a key component in many hand-held consumer products, were up by 33 percent from November 2004. Sales of application-specific standard circuits, another proxy for consumer products, were up by nearly 34 percent year-on-year.

“The main story of 2005 is the growing importance of consumers in driving sales of semiconductors,” Scalise also said.