The latest monthly run of the Cowan LRA Model provides global sales forecast estimates that cover the upcoming five quarters, namely, from 2Q08 through 2Q09, inclusively.  These updated forecast sales estimates are based on April 2008's actual (non-averaged) global S/C sales of $19.377 billion recently published (June 2nd, 2008) by the WSTS.  These newly generated sales forecast estimates are listed in the table below.  Also shown are global sales forecast estimates for next month, that is, May 2008, including both an actual sales estimate and a 3MMA estimate.   Moreover, this month's updated sales forecast estimates are compared to the model's corresponding sales forecast estimates from last month.  The percent changes in the sequential, back-to-back monthly sales forecast estimates are shown in the right-hand most column of the table including the latest momentum indicator.  Corresponding sales growth percentages are also presented including both sequential and year-over-year results.

Additionally, graphs are included (see write-up below) that provide additional insight into the latest global semiconductor sales forecast estimates as well as presenting an historical perspective to this month's updated sales forecast estimates.
 
The latest calculated monthly momentum indicator (displayed in the graph below) decreased quite strongly from last month's momentum of plus 6.1 percent to a plus 1.8 percent.  (Note - the monthly momentum indicator is defined as the percent difference between the actual sales number for a given month -- in this case April's just released actual global sales of $19.377 billion -- relative to the forecasted sales estimate for April -- that is, $19.027 billion which was calculated and published last month).  The momentum indicator can be either positive or negative and is a measure of the percent deviation of the actual monthly sales number from its previous month's prediction which is derived from the model's linear regression analysis of 24 years of past "historical monthly sales experience."  A longer term trend line of the monthly momentum indicator (covering the past five plus years) is provided in a second graph -- see below. This month's much weaker, but still positive, momentum is an indication that the sales growth rate trend over the near term will slow down, that is, be less robust than what was implied by last month's approximately 3 times higher momentum indicator. 

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