Upturn? Is this as good as it gets?

Finland, not a bellwether economy I accept, but still, an economy of significant size, has fallen back into recession.

How quickly can an industry the size of the electronics industry turn around? Every time it happens it seems to surprise us.

In the downturn of the early 1990s it took a couple of years to come back. The dot.com bust righted itself in just over a year.

Today we are seeing the chip market coming back from its worst ever downturn in little more than nine months.

The doom-sayers claim this is happening too fast, and may be they're right (this time).

Distributors are still waking up each morning and pinching themselves. Can the sales figures be this good so soon?

The concern is that the supply shortages, which are becoming more widespread every month, are artificially driving the sales figures by driving up prices.

The realists say: "sales is sales".

Of course they are right in a record Q1 and booming Q2. But will they be so chipper in Q4 when everyone is searching for new sales?

When we realise there was less real demand in the market than we thought.

I'm a pragmatic optimist.

Things rarely turn out as bad as the pessimists fear. And history teaches us one thing. Every time it is different.

With the help of government stimuli, 4G rollout and a rebalancing of the manufacturing sector, perhaps there is just enough true demand in the market to keep the recovery going.

At least until the next downturn, but by my back of an envelop calculation that's not due for another year or two.