Global forecast estimates based on WSTS's May semicon sales: Cowan LRA model

This is a continuation of my coverage of the fortunes of the global semiconductor industry. I would like to acknowledge and thank Mike Cowan, an independent semiconductor analyst and developer of the Cowan LRA model, who has provided me the latest numbers.

The WSTS posted May 2011′s HBR, Historical Billings Report, on its website on Tuesday, July 5th, 2011.

According to the WSTS’s HBR, May’s actual sales came in at $23.494 billion with the corresponding May 3MMA sales at $25.031 billion. It should be noted that two months experienced slight downward sales revisions from last month’s published HBR, namely March (down by $0.147 billion) and April (down by $0.112 billion), respectively.

The Cowan LRA model’s sales forecast estimates for May as published last month were $24.565 billion (actual) and $25.474 billion (3MMA), respectively. Thus, the model’s May MI (Momentum Indicator) came in at minus 4.4 percent.

This indicates (mathematically speaking) that the semiconductor industry’s actual May sales result was much lower than the model’s expectation by $1.071 billion and that, most probably, 2011′s sales growth will be trending downward for the rest of this year.

Plugging the latest actual sales number for May into the model yields the following updated sales and sales growths forecast estimates for 2011:Source: Cowan LRA model.

The key take-aways from comparing the latest versus previous month's forecast results are highlighted below:
* 2011's sales forecast estimate fell by $3.937 billion to $318.391 billion (from last month's sales forecast estimate of $322.328).
* Correspondingly, 2011's sales growth forecast estimate dropped by 1.3 percentage points to 6.7 percent (from last month's 8.0 percent sales growth forecast estimate).
* June 2011's actual sales forecast expectation is $29.435 billion which corresponds to a June 3MMA sales estimate of $25.445 billion assuming no (or minor) sales revisions for either April or May's previously published actual sales from last month.

Next month's forecast update based upon June's actual sales are expected to be available on or about Friday, Aug 5th, 2011.