By Angela Godwin

SAN JOSE, Calif – In a live Web cast aired on November 16, 2005, Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) President George Scalise indicated that the semiconductor industry has enjoyed a solid year to date, with revenues up 6.1 percent over last year, and will continue to prosper over the next year.

According to Scalise, the stronger-than-expected growth can be attributed, in part, to better inventory management, operating improvements, and strong demand across the board, particularly in the consumer markets such as PCs and cell phones.

Doug Andrey, SIA’s director of finance and principal industry analyst, pointed out that cell phone demand in emerging markets, such as India, Latin America, and Africa, is far stronger than originally anticipated. Unit PC growth, he says, is up 75 percent outside the established markets of the U.S., Western Europe, and Japan.

Scalise says the biggest surprise this year was that rising energy prices did not adversely affect revenues, as previously anticipated. He predicts that the dynamic and rapidly changing semi industry will continue to grow at a compound annual growth rate of about 10 percent-to $308 billion-through 2008.