Bernstein: September semiconductor sales beat seasonal trends, with memory price increases still the main growth driver

How strong was industry growth in September?

WSTS data show that global semiconductor sales rose 10.8% month over month in September 2026, above the 9.0% average for the same period in 2020–2025; sales rose 151% year over year, down from 158% in August.
On a rolling three-month basis, sales from month 7 through September rose 24.1% compared with month 4 through June, also above the historical average of 7.4% for the same period, showing that recent growth was not confined to September alone.

Memory sales rose 404% year over year in September; excluding memory, industry sales still grew 38%. Bernstein estimates that memory contributed approximately 541 billion dollars to the industry's year-over-year sales increase from month 1 through September, with changes in memory prices driving about two-thirds of the total industry sales increase.
The contributions from volume and price differed greatly: industry-wide shipments rose 10.1% year over year in September, while the average selling price rose 128.1%; Bernstein attributed the sharp rise in selling prices to higher memory prices.
Recent memory price trends have diverged. In September, DRAM and NAND shipments measured in bits rose 12.0% and 8.3% month over month, respectively; average prices per bit rose 4.9% and fell 1.6%, respectively.

Of 11 product groups, 6 recorded month-over-month sales growth in September above their historical levels for the period, while 5 were below. Standard linear analog chips grew 25.9%, well above the historical average of 8.1%; shipments rose 4.9% and the average selling price increased 19.7%.
There were also differences within memory: NAND sales rose 6.5% month over month, above the historical average of 3.9%; DRAM rose 17.5%, below the historical average of 20.3%.
Logic chips and microprocessors (MPUs) grew 2.9% and 3.6% month over month, respectively, both below their respective historical averages of 6.0% and 11.9%. However, rolling MPU sales from month 7 through September rose 9.1% from the preceding quarter, above the historical average of 6.6%.

Sales of application-specific integrated circuits, categorized by application, rose 4.8% month over month in September, below the historical average of 8.6% for the period. Automotive applications grew 17.8%, above the average of 16.0%; computers and peripherals grew 2.4%, below the average of 7.8%, while wireless communications grew 6.8%, also below the average of 8.3%.
Semiconductor sales rose both year over year and month over month in every region, but memory affected regional growth rates differently. Sales in the Americas rose 199% year over year in September, but only 2% excluding memory; the corresponding figures for China were 137% and 23%.