The amount of gold used in the technology sector grew for the fourth consecutive quarter, according to the latest demand report by the World Gold Council.
Tech industries consumed 67.3 tons of gold in Q3, a 3% increase year-on-year. Demand for memory chips served as a primary driver for increased industrial gold consumption.
All main sub-sectors registered growth. Continued strength in the memory sector – where supply remained very tight and demand high – underpinned a 12 to 15% increase in demand for gold bonding wire in Q3. Samsung Electronics credited ‘strong demand for …memory chipsets…and flagship mobile devices’ as a key contributor to its record Q3 net profit. The prolonged shortage in memory chips is expected to persist into 2018 as factories struggle to increase output sufficiently to meet demand for high-end smartphones. We believe this bodes well for the short-term outlook for gold bonding wire.’
World Gold Council head of market intelligence Alistair Hewitt told the Telegraph that tech companies spent several years trying to find substitutes for gold in order to save money, but that trend seems to have ended.
This post was published at Schiffgold on NOVEMBER 10, 2017.
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