Intel, Samsung, TSMC and Qualcomm all maintained their top leadership positions in semiconductor sales in 2013, according to a new report from IC Insights. However, the biggest growth leaders were SK Hynix, MediaTek, Micron and Qualcomm, each tallying greater than 30 percent growth year-over-year.
In a preview of its top 50 semiconductor supplier ranking and report, IC Insights reports that the top 20 worldwide semiconductor (including ICs and O-S-Ds—optoelectronics, discretes, and sensors) sales leaders for 2013 included nine suppliers headquartered in the U.S., three in Japan, three in Taiwan, three in Europe, and two in South Korea. The top 20 increased sales by nine percent in 2013 compared to 2012, which was more than twice the four percent growth rate for the total global semiconductor market last year, according to the report. It took semiconductor sales of about $3.9 billion to make the top 20 list.
The top 20 ranking includes three pure-play foundries — TSMC, GlobalFoundries, and UMC — and five fabless companies. All of the top four semiconductor suppliers have different business models: Intel is a pure-play IDM; Samsung is vertically integrated; TSMC is a pure-play foundry, and Qualcomm is a fabless company.
IC Insights includes IC foundries in the top 20 because it views the ranking as a top supplier list not as a market share ranking. “With many of our clients being vendors to the semiconductor industry (supplying equipment, chemicals, gases, etc.), excluding large IC manufacturers like the foundries would leave significant “holes” in the list of top semiconductor suppliers,” said IC Insights. The ranking should be used “as a guideline to identify which companies are the leading semiconductor suppliers, whether they are IDMs, fabless companies, or foundries.”
What were the key changes from last year’s ranking? The biggest change was Micron’s move to the top 5 ranking thanks to the acquisition of Elpida last year. Also, SK Hynix moved up two positions to number 6 despite the fire at its memory fab in China, taking full advantage of the 32 percent increase in the DRAM market last year, according to IC Insights.
Other winners include Broadcom, which moved into the number 10 position, and MediaTek, which moved up six positions to number 16, making the top 20 ranking for the first time. IC Insights expects MediaTek to move into the number 12 position in the 2014 ranking due to the expected merger between the company and MStar, bringing annual post-merger sales to more than $6 billion.
Avago is also expected to move up in the ranking in 2014 thanks to its purchase of LSI Corp., bringing total revenues to more than $5 billion this year. This could move Avago up from the number 27 position to number 13, said IC Insights.
The biggest losers in 2013 were Fujitsu, which dropped from number 16 in 2012 to number 21 last year, in part due to the sell off of its analog and microcontroller business to Spansion last year. Renesas also lost some ground, moving from number 7 to number 11 in the ranking.
IC Insights’ April update to The 2014 McClean Report will provide the complete 2013 ranking of the top 50 semiconductor suppliers.
