Outlook brighter for July chip sales

Even though 2009 chip sales overall will fall by around 15 percent in dollar terms, July figures due to be released soon will show overall improvement in the semiconductor market.

That’s according to Bruce Diesen, at Carnegie Securities Research who notes brighter signs in a number of the different semiconductor sectors.

Although chip sales in July 2009 are likely to have fallen by 18.3 percent, year on year, a number of indicators are suggesting the sector is beginning a slow recovery.

Diesen said that handset chips were weak in June, but July will show an improvement. Memory chip sales are being aided and abetted by more memory per handset being added, with more handsets including 16GB NAND memory in the third quarter of this year. Automotive chip sales are also set to improve because of different governmental initiatives.

Diesen quotes Reuters Ecowin as showing that production of PCs was up 40 percent year on year in July. HP’s strongest PC market in the period of May to July was mainland China.