December 17, 2007 – Worldwide semiconductor revenue will increase just 2.9% to $270.3B this year, with mixed performances among the top vendors, notes Gartner in its newest preliminary figures.
Intel saw its sales grow more twice as fast (8.2%, to $32.92B) as the industry average, and well outpacing that of its nearest rival Samsung (3.5%, to $20.85B), thanks to strong sales of mobile PCs, and recovering ground lost to AMD in desktops and servers.
Best growth of the top 10 suppliers goes to Toshiba (27.8%, $12.50B), mainly due to gains in NAND flash memory, Gartner notes. The firm also increased production of CMOS image sensors for mobile phones and ASICs/ASSPs revenue for digital consumer electronics, including LCD TVs, HD DVDs, and video game consoles. “Toshiba expected more price declines in its NAND flash memory segment, but supply and demand was better-balanced than expected because of the demand expansion for portable media players such as iPods and removable solid-state storage products,” Gartner stated.
The only other chip supplier in the top 10 with double-digit growth this year (or even close to it) was Hynix (20.2%, $9.62B).
Despite a continued awful DRAM market weighed by pricing and oversupply issues, major DRAM supplier Samsung nevertheless is expected to slightly outpace the overall market growth rate, thanks to steady gains in NAND flash as well as nonmemory applications including application processors, media ICs, CMOS image sensors, smart card ICs, and LCD driver ICs.
With the semiconductor industry increasingly tied to consumer-oriented digital devices, suppliers need to keep an even more careful eye on end-market demand consumer spending habits, warns Gartner research VP Andrew Norwood. “Loss of market share in an end-user application, such as a mobile phone, by a customer (e.g., a mobile phone manufacturer) can have a dramatic effect on a vendor’s business.”
“Semiconductor vendors need to watch the performance of their end customers even closer as a major part of the industry becomes increasingly tied to consumer spending patterns,” said Andrew Norwood, research vice president at Gartner. “Loss of market share in an end-user application, such as a mobile phone, by a customer (a mobile phone manufacturer) can have a dramatic effect on a vendor’s business.”
Top 10 worldwide semiconductor vendors
(Revenue estimates in US $M)
Company (2006 rank)……….2007 revenue (vs. 2006)……….2007 market share (%)
Intel (1)…………………………………32,918 (8.2%)………………………………12.2
Samsung Electronics (2)…………20,850 (3.5%)………………………………..7.7
Toshiba (6)……………………………12,504 (27.8%)………………………………4.6
Texas Instruments (3)…………….11,483 (-4.2%)……………………………….4.2
STMicroelectronics (5)……………..9,928 (0.8%)………………………………..3.7
Infineon Technologies (4)…………9,812 (-6.8%)……………………………….3.6
Hynix Semiconductor (7)