Global chip sales surge 35% in Q2

Global semiconductor sales reached $403.3 billion during the second quarter of 2026, rising 35.1% from the first three months of the year as demand strengthened across every regional market tracked by the industry. The latest figures from the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) put June sales at $134.5 billion, 123.6% above June 2025 and 9.7% higher than May.

The monthly figures are compiled by World Semiconductor Trade Statistics and represent a three-month moving average, rather than semiconductor invoices booked during a single calendar month. Even with that smoothing, the pace of change is unusually strong. April sales were $110.5 billion, followed by $120.6 billion in May and $134.5 billion in June, creating a sequence of increasingly large monthly totals through the quarter.

Europe recorded June growth of 75.2% year on year and 7.7% month on month. The annual increase was lower than in the Americas, Asia Pacific and other regions, and China, but it still represents a substantial change in the demand environment for a market that has recently experienced uneven automotive and industrial semiconductor conditions.

Elsewhere, June sales increased 160.9% year on year in the Americas, 124.4% across Asia Pacific and other regions, 112.8% in China, and 39% in Japan. Sequential growth was also positive in every region, ranging from 7.7% in Europe to 10.4% in China. Semiconductor cycles often produce sharp differences between geographies and device categories, making the breadth of the increase notable even though the headline data does not separate individual product classes.

The second-quarter total also marks a large step from the $298.5 billion recorded in Q1. That comparison does not mean physical chip shipments increased by the same percentage: semiconductor revenue can be affected by unit volumes, memory pricing, product mix, advanced-node content, and changes in the value of devices entering high-performance computing systems. The figures nevertheless show that the aggregate market is absorbing substantially more semiconductor value than it was only a few months earlier.

That shift changes the planning assumptions facing component suppliers and electronics manufacturers. Stronger demand can raise foundry utilisation, increase pressure on advanced packaging and memory capacity, and tighten availability in product families that share manufacturing or back-end resources with faster-growing devices. The industry has added capacity since the severe shortages of 2021 and 2022, while many customers have also changed inventory practices, so the current expansion does not automatically imply a return to the same supply conditions.

The regional figures require similar caution. Europe’s 75.2% annual increase is a market-value measure rather than evidence that every automotive, industrial, power, or analogue semiconductor category is expanding at that rate. Individual electronics sectors can still face inventory corrections while the broader semiconductor market rises because of growth elsewhere, particularly in memory and computing infrastructure.

SIA expects worldwide semiconductor sales to exceed $1.5 trillion during 2026. That forecast would put the market far above the $791.7 billion recorded in 2025, although pricing and product mix will remain important contributors to the final value. Higher-content AI systems, advanced memory, and increasingly complex networking electronics can push semiconductor revenue upwards without requiring the same percentage increase in device shipments.

For European component users, the next several monthly releases will show whether June represents the continuation of a sustained acceleration or the high point of a particularly rapid first-half expansion. The immediate position is less ambiguous: quarterly semiconductor sales have risen by more than a third, and Europe is participating in that growth rather than sitting outside it.