THE Chinese mainland now accounts for 41 percent of global semiconductor consumption market, an increase of 3 percentage points from the previous year, thanks to its increasing share of the global production of electronic devices such as mobile phones and computers, PricewaterhouseCoopers said in a research note yesterday.

"The domestic market continued to outperform the rest of the world and expand its footprint in the global semiconductor market place," Raman Chitkara, PwC's global technology industry leader, said in the note.

By the end of 2009, the mainland was the No. 1 consumer of semiconductors as it accounted for 41 percent of global semiconductor consumption. It also accounted for 50 percent of global semiconductor initial public offerings and employed 25 percent of the total global semiconductor workforce.

The shining star in the domestic industry was its rapidly growing fabrication sector, referring to chip design and research activities which jumped 17 percent in 2009 to a record US$4 billion, PwC said.

The country's electronic manufacturing sector is expected to attract more overseas investment, which will continue to fuel the domestic semiconductor consumption, industry insiders said.

Top firms such as Intel Inc, Dell Inc, Hewlett-Packard Inc and AMD Inc, have decided to set up manufacturing facilities on the mainland to tap the booming consumer electronics market and rising domestic consumption by a growing middle class.

China is now the world's biggest cell phone market with more than 800 million users, the Ministry of Industry and Information Industry said.