The sale of new tablet PCs and smartphones with solid-state storage technology is compensating for weak demand for memory cards and USB flash drives, and has led to a 17% quarter-to-quarter increase in NAND flash shipments and an average price drop of about 9%.

"We're close to 60 million BlackBerry subscribers now and if we continue to perform moderately, we'll be 100 million (subscribers) in couple of years...two years," said RIM Co-Chief Executive Jim Balsillie.

So how does 40,000 Window 7 phones measure up? Google said last month that it was selling 200,000 Android phones a day. And Apple has said that its iPhone sales rate was 270,000 a day.

Singapore-based chip packager STATS ChipPAC has posted revenues of US$432.2 million in the third quarter of 2010, down by marginal 0.7% sequentially but up 10.9% on year. "We expect net revenues in the fourth quarter of 2010 to decline by single-digit level from prior quarter..."

European chipmaker STMicroelectronics has reported higher-than-expected net profits for the third quarter, and said sales would expand in the final three months of the year. STM's results follow recent upbeat earnings reports from Intel and ASML.

Japan's largest mobile-phone operatormay beat its full-year smartphone sales target by as much as 30%.

But net sales for its third fiscal quarter ended September 26, 2010 grew to US$307.6 million, from US$255.7 million in the prior quarter and US$327.6 million a year ago.

"New Product sales were led by particularly strong growth from the Virtex-6 and Spartan-6 FPGA families," said Moshe Gavrielov, Xilinx President and CEO. "Combined sales from these families more than doubled sequentially in the September quarter..."

Toshiba's operating profits for the April-September period is set to come to more than 100 billion yen (US$1.2 billion), beating the company's forecast of 70 billion yen, according to the Nikkei business daily. Booming global sales of smartphones have boosted demand for the company's flash memory chips and small LCD panels.

Programmable chipmaker Altera has forecast its sales would grow in the fourth quarter as China expands its wireless telephone infrastructure but some analysts warned that revenues could slow next year.

"This month, for the first time ever, Android revenue exceeded iPhone-only revenue amidst strong raw iOS impression growth," according to Millenial's Oct 19 report.

"We booked EUR 1,297 million worth of systems in the third quarter of 2010 and expect bookings in the fourth quarter to exceed the Q3 level, confirming our potential for 2011 sales growth," said Eric Meurice, president and CEO of ASML.

As of August 10, Android phones represented 32% of the smartphones sold this year. In comparison, Apple iPhones accounted for 25% of devices sold and RIM BlackBerry handsets represented 26% of sales.

Disappointing sales forecasts from National Semiconductor and Texas Instruments triggered the sell-off. The letdown comes just two weeks after Intel warned its sales for July through September would fall below its earlier projections.

Analog chip vendor Texas Instruments has lowered the upper end of its forecast range for third-quarter profit and sales, indicating that semiconductor demand may be slipping as economic growth slows.

As analyst Simon Dong-je Woo notes in a research report, TLC NAND pricing is down about 20% already in the current quarter. And he also reports that SanDisk has more exposure to TLC NAND than other players in the sector, accounting for 65% of the company's overall NAND chip sales.

Samsung has seen its semiconductor revenues rise at CAGR of 13.5% from 1999-2009, while Intel's sales have increased at a CAGR of just 3.4% in the same period. Extrapolating these growth rates, Samsung would pass Intel in semiconductor sales in 2014, according to IC Insights.

Korea-based specialty IC foundry Dongbu HiTek has revealed plans to open sales offices in France and Italy, gearing to expand its customer base in Europe.

Consultancy Frost and Sullivan said smartphones would account for 54 percent of the Asia-Pacific mobile market in five years, up sharply from five percent in 2009.

Verigy, which makes products that test flash memory, high-speed computer memory chips and SoC devices, previously posted seven straight quarters of red ink, though recent losses had narrowed.

Applied Materials has forecast quarterly results that beat Wall Street estimates, with demand for its chip-making gear holding up despite fears of weakening technology spending. But the company warned that sales of solar and energy equipment would slide 10-20% this quarter.

Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, saw its quarterly profits rise 3.6%, but sales in its home US market fell for the fifth quarter in a row.

With semiconductor sales soaring to a possible 30% increase this year, companies are ramping up capacity to meet current and expected demand. But the capital invested during the balance of 2010 will not impact actual capacity until sometime in 2011.

Electronics distributor Avnet has reported record sales of US$5.21 billion for the quarter ended July 3, 2010, besting consensus analyst expectations. "The demand for electronic components remained strong across all three regions as better-than-normal sequential growth resulted in year-over-year revenue growth of 47% this quarter," said company CEO Roy Vallee.

LDK Solar reported Tuesday that it earned net income of US$45 million, or 36 cents per American Depositary Share, in the quarter that ended June 30. That compared with a net loss of US$216.9 million, or US2.03 per ADS, when it took a hefty writedown on plummeting inventory value in the year-ago quarter.

The mid-year edition of the SEMI Capital Equipment Forecast predicts that sales of global semiconductor equipment are growing in all regions in 2010. Taiwan is again, projected to be the largest market with US$9.18 billion.