By Dr Mike Cooke

Total sales of ICs in October 2005 reached $20.0 billion, a 6.8% increase on October 2004, according to the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) organisation. However, the 17.6% growth to $7.91 billion for sales into Asia Pacific swamps weakness in Japan and Europe, where chip sales fell compared with October 2004. The remaining Americas market registered a modest 2.5% increase from 2004 to reach sales of $3.60 billion.

All regions showed increases compared with September 2005 in the range 0.8-4.3%, Japan representing the lowest figure and the Americas the highest. On a year-to-date basis, Japan's sales have fallen 3.1% compared with 2004, while other regions have all increased sales. The Americas and Europe both increased sales by more than 1%, while Asia Pacific's 15.3% leads to a world average of 6.1%.

October IC sales (billion $)

Market region                2004               2005          % change

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Americas                     3.51               3.59              2.5%

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Europe                       3.46               3.42             -1.1%

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Japan                        3.90               3.73             -4.5%

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Asia Pacific                 7.91               9.31             17.6%

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Total                       18.78              20.05              6.8%