The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) released its newest sales report today and said that worldwide sales of semiconductors grew by 1.6%, rising from $22.6 billion in September 2007 to $23 billion in the same month of this year. In comparison to August 2008, chipmakers shipped chips worth $22.7 billion to different shores. So far, $196.4 billion of semiconductors have been sold in the first three quarters of the current year, four percent more than in the same period last year.

Excluding memory, a notoriously flip-flopping product, sales grew by 7%. Apparently, some memory products grew by 100%, whilst demand for flash memory slipped up and fell 37.5% and DRAM dwindled 11.1%.

Broken down by region, chip sales in September on a year-to-year basis decreased by 15.7% in the US of A, stayed flat in Japan and deflated by 1,5% in Europe. Asia jumped in to save the month, with sales soaring 9.2% in the region.

SIA padre Georgey Porgey Scalise didn't kiss all the girls and made them cry, but he certainly brought member companies to tears by saying that the board saw a drop of over 20 points in its consumer confidence index, which fell from 61.4 to a new low of 38. Scalise hinted that people will be holding on to their wallets and credit cards by diplomatically saying consumer confidence was steeply declining and companies were being quite careful.

Nonetheless, the world won't come to an end, as demand is more cheerful in emerging markets, as more and more people can afford cell phones and PCs around the world. X