Could the global semiconductor industry be heading for a much anticipated recovery? It’s starting to look that way. Chip sales rose in July for the fifth consecutive month on a month-to-month basis, according to the trade group, Semiconductor Industry Association. Which is not to say sales are robust; down 18.2 percent year-over-year, they’re abysmal, but they are showing continuing signs of recovery.
iPhone sales are trending well in the September quarter and Apple has app developers and its rivals to thank for it. This according to Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, who says those two groups are doing a great deal to reinforce Apple’s brand.
Dell’s profit fell 23 percent in its second quarter. Its sales fell 22 percent. But the company still beat Wall Street expectations, and that’s what counts these days. Dell shares spiked nearly seven percent when the news was released, oddly, three minutes before the close of trading Thursday.
The PlayStation 3 price cut is a rumor no longer. Hoping to bolster sales in advance of the holiday shopping season, Sony Tuesday announced a new slimmer verison of the game console and slashed $100 off its price.
Looks like the semiconductor industry has finally found a bottom from which to scramble upward. In the second quarter, chip sales registered their fourth consecutive monthly increase, the Semiconductor Industry Association said today, suggesting that we may be seeing the beginning of a gradual recovery in the industry. Though worldwide chip sales fell 20 percent year-over-year in the second quarter, they rose 17 percent from the first quarter.
Sales of the Palm Pre aren’t slowing; nor is the device suffering from unusually high return rates. And all this incessant hand-wringing over the Pre’s performance at market is needless. That’s the word from Deutsche Bank analyst Jonathan Goldberg, who says Palm’s new smartphone is doing just fine.
Apple’s voracious appetite for NAND flash RAM has proven a boon to Toshiba. Discussing Apple’s latest earnings on a conference call with analysts Tuesday, company COO Tim Cook revealed that Apple and Toshiba have inked a flash memory deal worth half a billion dollars.
Demand for Apple’s iPhone 3GS, which topped one million handsets sold in its first weekend at market, has surpassed even the company’s presumably aggressive targets. Reporting earnings Tuesday, Apple said it sold 5.2 million iPhones in its third quarter and finally copped to something that’s long been apparent to anyone who’s been keeping an eye on its iPhone availability widget: Demand for the new iPhone 3GS is far outpacing supply.
Three months after Intel CEO Paul Otellini announced that the PC market had reached bottom, the company’s latest financials, which handily beat expectations, seem to have proven him right. “The worst is now behind us,” he noted. And the tech economy is showing signs of muted recovery. The question is: Is that recovery sustainable?
Things are starting to look up for Dell–well, as much as they can for a company so beaten into submission by the econalypse. The company said Monday that demand for its products appears to have stabilized and that it expects to report “a slight sequential revenue increase” for its second fiscal quarter, which ends July 31.
Are sales of the Pre slowing or not? Without official numbers from Palm or Sprint, it’s nearly impossible to tell. But that hasn’t stopped analysts from taking a stab at it. Earlier this week, Pali research claimed Pre sales were tapering off. Now Pacific Crest is saying they remain “robust.”
Post-Pre launch, Palm may be, in the words of CEO Jon Rubinstein, “exactly where we hoped we would be.” But how long the company will stay there is an open question. Because according to Pali Research, Pre sales slowed again last week.
John Paczkowski has been poking fun at the tech industry and the personalities that drive it since 1997. From 1999 to 2007, he wrote the award-winning tech news Web log Good Morning Silicon Valley for the San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley's daily newspaper. Read more »
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
Best use of the Beeker “meee” ever.
While the technology behind the Telephone is new, the design is reassuringly old-fashioned, reminiscent of a phrenologist’s horn or ear-candle in form. We found the experience far more comfortable than the one we had with the Telegraph.
12:58 AM: Breakfast: Two schools of fish from Tokyo Bay. Calories: 782,000. How I was feeling when I ate this: confused, irradiated, hating my size.
11:37 AM: Exercise: “Taxi Stomp” (alternating legs, for 30 blocks). Calories burned: 148,900,183.
1983. The Beatles announce their first tour in thirteen years, but likewise announce that Michael Jackson will be going on tour with them as a one gigantic mega-concert event.
Best video mashup ever.
A Facebook Memorial
Wow.
Worth it for the Rickrolling photo alone.
Excellent.
Flughumor!
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