The SIA yesterday released the WSTS semiconductor sales data for September. Monthly revenues reached a record $27 billion driving third-quarter revenues to their own record of $81 billion. This was the seventh straight month of semiconductor growth, the first such run-up since 2010.
This quote, by SIA CEO Brian Toohey really caught The Memory Guy’s eye: “Sales of memory products have increased sharply compared to last year and continue to be a major driver of industry growth.”
A lot has been happening to drive this increase in memory revenues: The recent SK hynix fire increased DRAM prices, but before that memory prices had been roughly stable since mid-2012, when Toshiba reported a NAND production cut. Meanwhile, bit consumption has steadily risen.
This is the classic turn-around in the semiconductor cycle. For the next two years the industry should do very well for itself, simply because capital spending was abruptly stopped in mid-2011 and hasn’t yet been restarted. Consumption has caught up with capacity, and too little new capacity is being added to fulfill tomorrow’s growing requirements.
We at Objective Analysis have shared a forecast with our clients to explain that the semiconductor market will be very profitable for the balance of this year through the first half of 2015. Meanwhile we have advised our purchasing clients to sign long-term purchase agreements to assure themselves of steady supply during upcoming shortages. Please give us a call if your company could profit from this kind of help to reach its financial goals .
