On the back of Intel's better-than-expected financials, an iSuppli analyst said Monday that chip inventories will recover, driving up sales in the second half of the year.
Following positive financial guidance from Intel and other chipmakers, global semiconductor revenue will increase by a sharp 10.4 percent in the third quarter and by 4.9 percent in the fourth quarter, according to Carlo Ciriello, a financial analyst for iSuppli.
This expected recovery comes on the heels of four consecutive quarters of chip inventory declines, which took their sharpest dive in the first quarter of this year, plunging by 15.1 percent. iSuppli forecasts that second-half inventories will increase modestly by 5.1 percent in the third quarter and 1 percent in the fourth.
"Falling demand in the first half of 2009 prompted a swift inventory correction among chip suppliers," said Ciriello, in a statement. "Companies dialed down (factory) utilization levels and cleared swaths of inventory by reducing Average Selling Prices (ASPs) in anticipation of continued depressed demand," he added, describing how the sluggish market conditions in the first half should set the stage for an inventory correction in the second half.
FBR Capital Markets analyst Craig Berger said in a research note Monday that because Intel's forecasts were much better than investors anticipated three months ago, he expects global demand to recover as "the world gets back to normal." Berger's comments appeared in the Wall Street Journal on Monday.
Source: CNET
