
Gartner looks in the tea leaves
Beancounters at Gartner have been looking in their tea leaves and are convinced that either
global chip sales are expected to rise 27 per cent this year or one of them
will win the lottery. The reading makes sense as there have been sharply higher
memory prices and boosted production forecasts for a number of consumer
products, and a bloke from accounts
bought a ticket.
The cynics in the outfit point to below-average chip-sales growth in the second
half claiming that semiconductor revenue
will realign with electronic-systems sales. The bloke has bought tickets in the past, but never won anything, the nay
sayers say. However Gartner expects global semiconductor revenue will
reach $290 billion, an improvement from its projection for nearly 20 per cent
growth made in the first quarter.
Bryan Lewis of Gartner noted, "Sequential
semiconductor growth has been very strong over the last five quarters, well
above seasonal norms, and manufacturing capacity is tight." However,
"chip revenue growth is clearly outpacing system revenue growth and that
is a concern."
Gartner also raised its production forecast for PCs,
mobile phones, automotive and some other consumer products. Gartner now expects
PC processor revenue to rise 16%, compared with its prior view for 10 per cent,
as average selling prices firm up. Sales of dynamic random access memory chips are expected
to soar 78 per cent, with some analysts predicting that demand for media
tablets will noticeably impact the market by 2013, further fuelling growth.