The industry's second-half 2003 performance was one of the strongest on record, supported by U.S. GDP growth of 8.2 percent in the third quarter and 4 percent in the fourth quarter, SIA said.
"The industry's broad, upward momentum across all product sectors and geographic markets is driving us toward another year of strong, double-digit growth, which is now expected to exceed 19 percent in 2004," said SIA President George Scalise. "The wireless sector continues to spearhead growth, but PC shipments also recovered in 2003 to an 11 percent unit volume increase. We are experiencing a virtual revolution in global consumer markets as consumers adopt new technology and multifunctional smart devices such as camera phones, PDAs and DVDs."
PC sales were a major contributor to growth in the fourth quarter, with DRAM revenue up 10.6 percent and microprocessors up 7.9 percent in the December quarter over the September quarter, the SIA said.
The global wireless market grew 16 percent in 2003, double initial forecasts. In 2003's final quarter, year-over-year volumes were up 20 percent with DSP sales rising 11.6 percent in the quarter and flash memory up a hefty 29.3 percent.
The wireline communications market turned in a positive performance in 2003's final quarter for the first time since 2000, with programmable logic device sales up 32.5 percent.
Discover the benefits of scalable backbone and network services for application and cloud providers.
Network automation is gaining momentum. Here's how you can drive this powerful technology to its full potential.
Subsea cable alternatives can provide a level of comfort for those concerned about disruptions. Realistically, they will continue to play a small, but critical role in the short term.
