NEW YORK – Worldwide semiconductor sales rose 1.5 percent to $18.8 billion in October from a month earlier, reflecting inventory corrections, the Semiconductor Industry Association (search) said on Friday.
The trade group for U.S. chip makers also forecast flat fourth-quarter sales compared with the third quarter and said it still expects year-on-year growth of at least 28 percent.
Digital signal processor sales were up 8.5 percent sequentially in October, while microprocessor sales rose 6.4 percent and DRAM (search) sales were up 2.8 percent.
Those figures are "signs that excess inventories of these products have also been worked out of the supply chain," said SIA President George Scalise in a statement.
He added that sales of consumer electronics, which are becoming more and more important in driving growth for the semiconductor industry, may be "modulated somewhat this season by slower than expected growth in the sales of digital video recorders and a very competitive market in DVD players."
Scalise said high energy prices are affecting consumer spending and making it less clear how December sales for the industry will look.
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