What's Happening in Markets
Staff -- Purchasing, 3/4/2004 2:00:00 AM
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Sales of cellular telephones will increase by 4% in 2004, forecasts analyst Peter Rhamey at BMO Nesbitt Burns, but wireless product pricing "should remain stable." The magnitude of the late-2003/2004 purchasing rebound isn't yet clear, he says. But, it is clear that prices for basic-model phones are collapsing and the prices for multi-functional handsets remain rather pricey.
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After growing 16% in 2003, global sales of chips in 2004 will swell by a further 19.5%, to $195 billion, forecasts the Semiconductor Industry Assn. Historically, SIA have been overly bullish. Unlike previous growth cycles, SIA says no single product will lift the overall market. Instead, the continuing economic recovery will fuel broad demand across all chip markets: computers, consumer electronics, telecom—cell phones, in particular—transportation, and industrial equipment.
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Job stress costs U.S. businesses an average $300 billion annually, says the International Commission on Occupational Health. Stress causes from illness, depression and work place violence, and is the main reason that 2004 will see the fifth-straight double-digit hike in health insurance premiums with an increase of 12%.
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There was strong purchasing growth in 2003 for such storage devices as hard, optical and tape drives. In fact, sales of hard disk drives of 254.3 million units were up 16.4% from 218.4 million units in 2002. The market will grow another 9.3% in 2004, iSuppli Corp. predicts, to reach 278 million units. By 2007, researchers reckon the HDD market could grow to 358 million units.
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U.S. production of plastic resin totaled 71.8 billion pounds through November, a 1.8% decrease from the manufacture in the eleven months of 2002, reports the American Plastics Council. Meanwhile, year-to-date sales and captive use totaled 71.9 billion pounds, a decrease of 2.2% from the same eleven-month period in 2002.
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Business telecommunications equipment buying may recover this year, or not. Some market researchers are optimistically forecasting 5% growth for business telecom capital spending to $41.5 billion in 2004 from $39.5 billion in 2003 after three years of slashed budgets. However, some other analysts are expecting less than 1% growth back to the $39.9 billion capex level of 2001.
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