Chip sales hold steady in February

Chip sales held steady in February, the Semiconductor Industry Association announced Friday. Preliminary results indicate that last month's $10.01 billion in worldwide chip sales were essentially unchanged from January. But the lack of growth isn't all bad, the SIA said, given that January sales dipped 1.7 percent from December's $10.18 billion. The SIA is predicting a semiconductor comeback in 2002, with worldwide semiconductor sales totaling $150 billion. That's about a 7 percent increase from 2001's $139 billion in sales. So far, some regions of the world are picking up more quickly than others. February saw sales growth in the Americas, for example, offsetting dips in Europe and Japan, the SIA said. Despite this initial progress, the semiconductor market has a long way to go toward a recovery and an even longer stretch before it can match 2000's record of $204 billion in sales. Although February chip sales held steady on a month-to-month basis, year-over-year sales were down 35.3 percent from February 2001's $15.5 billion, the SIA said. --John G. Spooner, Special to ZDNet News