This is something we have been requesting for a number of years and over the last year ESIA has complied.

All we have to do now is wean ESIA and their U.S. counterpart off their compulsion to obfuscate the sales data by reporting it only in the form of a rolling three-month average. The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) argues that this smoothes out the data, which would otherwise display the effects of in-quarter reporting that tend to treat March, June, September and December as five-week months.

It seems to me that by withholding the 'actual' monthly data the ESIA and the SIA are saying they do not trust others to be able to see past the rise or fall of an individual month's numbers. The message I take from this is "Best to let the little people have the numbers after they have been massaged." However, the idea that either the business or engineering communities interested in these numbers are not mathematically savvy is ridiculous. At least World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) still puts the actual monthly data up on its website.

While the breaking out of Chinese semiconductor market data, albeit as a three-month average, is still welcome it also begs other questions.

Why doesn't WSTS put the Chinese data up on its website? Why doesn't the SIA do like the ESIA and report the Chinese market data, even if only in averaged form?

And what country is responsible for most of the rest of the Asia-Pacific region's sales? Presumably Taiwan, but it would be good to know the numbers.

Related links and articles:

http://www.eeca.eu/index.php/esia_home/en/

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