Chip sales to hit $354 billion this year
 

Sales of semiconductors are likely to reach $354 billion in 2015. That’s a four percent increase from last year, but growth is not as buoyant as some expected.

A Garner report said suppliers are having to cope with the strength of the US dollar, and there’s plenty of inventory sitting in warehouses.

The market is also being affected by the end of the PC upgrade cycle.

It’s expected that suppliers will raise prices in Europe to keep their margins high, while they’ll also extend product life cycles.

In terms of application, smartphones, solid state drives (SSDs) and ultramobiles will see the best growth. “The traditional PC segment will experience the greatest decline.”

Even though Intel’s Skylake semis and Windows 10 will be available in the third quarter of this year, Gartner believes demand will stay “muted”.

DRAM is showing strong growth however. Gartner expects DRAM revenues will increase by 7.9 percent this year, but there will big declines in 2016 of 20.2 percent, and in 2017 declines of 8.4 percent.

http://www.techeye.net/chips/chip-sa...lion-this-year