What's Happening in High-Tech Supply Chains
Staff -- Purchasing, 2/19/2004 2:00:00 AM
-
Early-2004 heavy machinery sales in North America have been especially strong, according to Nancy Snowden, director of investor relations at Caterpillar. As metals and minerals commodity prices have risen, there has been an expansion of mining that has brought industrial machinery investment off its all-time low in 2003.
-
World buys of personal digital assistants (PDAs) nosedived 18% to 10.4 million units last year from 12.6 million units in 2002. Analyst David Linsalata at research house IDC blames the decline on handheld devices losing their luster to feature-rich cellular telephones. He says handheld devices need to include such other technologies as media players and digital cameras to resume their growth.
-
Serial ATA, the next-generation digital interface specification for electronics products, debuted last year and represented just 7.5% of 3.5-inch ATA drive shipments in the second half. However, producer Maxtor Inc. expects serial ATA drives to be about 37% of 3.5-inch drive shipments in 2004. Note: Serial-Attached SCSI (SAS) hard drives will debut this autumn, with mass integration occurring by early 2005.
-
Steep sales growth is seen for advanced image processors used in next-generation digital televisions. From sales of $200 million in 2003, Stanford Resources predicts the advanced processor segment will expand to $985 billion in 2007, when DTV output will be 160 million units (versus 68 million expected this year).
-
Worldwide shipments of power supply and power management integrated circuits should increase to 5.9 billion units this year from 5.5 billion in 2003, says Venture Development Corp., which forecasts continued growth to seven billion in 2006. Factors influencing growth include increased demand for wireless and broadband technologies, which, in turn, will boost demand for highly efficient, compact power management ICs.
-
U.S. consumer and business spending on wireless communications will grow 7.6% to $144.7 billion in 2004, forecasts the Telecommunications Industry Association. TIA says spending in 2003 of $134.5 billion was up 7.9% from 2002, driven by new Wi-Fi (wireless fidelity) technologies. The market could grow to 358 million units.
What's Happening in High-Tech Supply Chains
01/16/2002Freeport not boosting U.S. copper output
10/26/2009What's Happening in High-Tech Supply Chains
10/20/2004
Now Playing: 
