The global semiconductor industry posted sales of US$468.8 billion in 2018, the industry's highest-ever annual total and an increase of 13.7% compared to the 2017 total, according to Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA).

Global sales for the month of December 2018 reached US$38.2 billion, a slight increase of 0.6% over the December 2017 total, but down 7.0% compared to the total from November 2018, said SIA. Fourth-quarter 2018 sales of US$114.7 billion were 0.6% higher than the total from the fourth quarter of 2017, but 8.2% less than the third quarter of 2018.

"Global demand for semiconductors reached a new high in 2018, with annual sales hitting a high-water mark and total units shipped topping 1 trillion for the first time," said John Neuffer, SIA president and CEO. "Market growth slowed during the second half of 2018, but the long-term outlook remains strong."

Several semiconductor product segments stood out in 2018. Memory was the largest semiconductor category by sales with US$158.0 billion in 2018, and the fastest growing, with sales increasing 27.4%. Within the memory category, sales of DRAM products increased 36.4% and sales of NAND flash products increased 14.8%.

Logic (US$109.3 billion) and micro-ICs (US$67.2 billion) - a category that includes microprocessors - rounded out the top three product categories in terms of total sales. Other fast-growing product categories in 2018 included power transistors (14.4% growth/total sales of US$14.4 billion) and analog products (10.8% growth/total sales of US$58.8 billion). Even without sales of memory products, sales of all other products combined increased by nearly 8% in 2018.

Annual sales increased substantially across all regions: China (20.5%), the Americas (16.4%), Europe (12.1%), Japan (9.2%), and Asia Pacific/All Other (6.1%). For the month of December 2018, year-to-year sales increased in China (5.8%), Europe (2.8%), and Japan (2.3%), but fell 0.7% in Asia Pacific/All Other and 6.2% in the Americas. Sales in December 2018 were down compared to November 2018 across all regions.