LONDON – The global market for chips was worth about $23 billion in May, according to Nomura Equity Research which has disclosed monthly by-sector statistics provided by the Semiconductor Industry Association.
The global chip revenue excluding memory in May was $18 billion down 2 percent compared with May 2011 and a reversal of fortune from April which had been up 3 percent year-on-year, Nomura said in a note to clients.
The decline was driven by a retreat in the analog and microprocessor chip markets, Nomura reported. The market for analog chips, at $3.2 billion in May, was down 10 percent year-on-year while microprocessor sales of $2.8 billion were down 9 percent year-on-year. This was not compensated for by other logic IC revenue of $6.3 billion in May, up 6 percent compared with May 2011.
Nomura also provided separate growth and decline figures for IC unit shipments and average selling prices (ASPs) for these major categories.
Total unit shipments for the overall chip market in May, excluding memory chips, declined 1 percent annually and the ASPs declined by 2 percent, Nomura said.
Analog units and ASPs were down 3 percent and down 7 percent, compared with May 2011, respectively. MPU units and ASPs were down 13 percent y/y and up 4 percent y/y.
Nomura noted that Intel and AMD no longer provide MPU statistics to the SIA via the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) organization. It is thought that WSTS will have tried to estimate the Intel and AMD positions.
Logic IC unit shipments in May were up 4 percent compared with May 2011 and ASPs for logic ICs were up 2 percent over May 2011.
The memory sector, valued at $5.0 billion in May, was down 6 percent on where it was in May 2011. Memory units were up 8 percent year-on-year while ASPs declined 13 percent.
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