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GERMANY NOW WORLD'S "MOST WIRED" NATION

BERLIN - Germany now claims to lead the world in the number of Internet sites, with 85 Web sites for every 1,000 citizens -- and more than half of Germans are online.

The claim to be the world's most-wired nation comes in a new report by the government-backed project "Information Society Germany 2006," which says German information technology already employs 750,000 people, with revenues approaching $200 billion this year.
 
Germans are keen to embrace new technologies, he said, noting that the country now has more cell phones than conventional fixed telephone lines in German homes, with 80% of the population having mobile telephones.
 
SEMICONDUCTOR MARKETS "THAW" IN 2003, GROUP SAYS

SAN JOSE - Semiconductor vendors saw a thaw in the markets in 2003, says The Gartner Group in its annual report on the state of the industry.

According to its report, the overall industry grew 11.8%, well above the 2% growth rate of 2002.

Unsurprisingly, Intel retained the top spot, bringing in $28 billion in 2003 - almost three times more than second-place Samsung, which earned $10.3 billion in chip revenue.
 
No. 2 Samsung - with a 5.9% market share - saw big growth in 2003, up 19.6% compared to the previous year. The firm switched its production focus to NAND flash, capitalizing on higher selling prices. Another NAND winner was Toshiba, which enjoyed 15% growth in 2003.

A new entrant, mostly in name, climbed into the third spot.

Renesas Technology, a joint venture between Hitachi and Mitsubishi Electric, grabbed 4.3% of global market share with $7.5 billion in revenue. The firms were previously Nos. 10 and 11 in the Gartner rankings, respectively.
 
The top ten firms in order by revenue for 2003 are Intel, Samsung, Renesas, Toshiba, Texas Instruments, STMicroelectronics, Infineon, NEC, Motorola, and Philips.

Those companies controlled a total of 51.6% of the global chip market.
 
One characteristic of many of the top ten companies is product focus.

While Samsung and Toshiba, for example, make a broad range of chips, firms like Intel, Texas Instruments, or Infineon have staked off a big corner of the market.
 
Texas Instruments - ranked 5th - kept a strong presence in wireless chips and increased its focus in specialty applications. It surged 18.6% in 2003 with $7.4 billion in revenue and a 4.2% market share.

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