SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Worldwide sales of semiconductors rose to $16.13 billion in November 2003, a 4.5 percent increase from the $15.43 billion recorded in October, and a 25.7 percent rise from November of 2002, the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) reported today.

"November has been another exceptionally strong month for the industry with the year-on-year growth accelerating to 25.7%, indicating that 2003's second half performance is one of the strongest on record for our industry," stated SIA President George Scalise. "Year-to-date sales through November are 17.4% ahead of 2002. We expect sales for all of 2003 to exceed the current forecast of 15.8% with broad-based strength in all end-markets, especially computation, communications, global consumer and automotive," Scalise added.

Rising PC sales contributed to the industry's growth in the month, with DRAM up 4% and Microprocessors up 3.5%. The global wireless market also continued to exhibit strong growth, with Flash up 11.2% and Digital Signal Processors up 3.5% in November.

Global consumer electronics markets, which tend to show strong sales in the December quarter, grew briskly in the month, reflecting the holiday buying season and eager adoption of multi-functional devices by consumers around the world. Sales of DVDs and digital cameras were especially strong. Optoelectronics were up 5.3 percent in November, MOS logic used in products other than computers were up 4.8 percent, and application specific Analog was up 4.6 percent in November.

Capacity utilization reached 95% in the fourth quarter, allowing modest pricing power to continue in the industry.

All geographic markets recorded higher chip sales in November with Europe up 6.4 percent sequentially, Japan up 4.5 percent, the Americas up 4.1 percent, and Asia Pacific up 3.8 percent.

Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA)