Buoyed by chip sales growth and a major acquisition, leading semiconductor supplier Intel in 2011 attained its highest annual market share in more than 10 years.

Intel increased its overall semiconductor market share to 15.6% in 2011, up from 13.1% in 2010. This represents the highest market share for Intel going back to at least 2001, when it reached 14.9%. Over the last five years, Intel's share of the market ranged from 11.9% to 13.9%.

"Intel in 2011 captured the headlines with its major surge in growth," said Dale Ford, head of electronics and semiconductor research for IHS. "The company's rise was spurred by soaring demand for its PC-oriented microprocessors, and for its NAND flash memory used in consumer and wireless products. Intel's revenue also was boosted by its acquisition of Infineon's wireless business unit. The company's strong rise helped it to stave off the rising challenge mounted by No. 2 semiconductor supplier Samsung Electronics, which had been whittling away at Intel's lead in recent years."

Intel saw its revenues rise 20.6% in 2011. This outpaced every other semiconductor supplier in the top 20 with the exception of Qualcomm and ON Semiconductor, both of which also saw exceptionally high levels of growth based on a combination of organic expansion and key acquisitions.

Until 2011, Samsung had been steadily closing the gap with Intel, with its share of global semiconductor market revenues rising from 3.9% in 2000 to 9.2% in 2010, IHS noted. Samsung's revenue growth of 0.6% in 2011 left its overall market share unchanged at 9.2% in 2011.

Global semiconductor market growth for 2011 has been measured at 1.3%. This is down slightly from IHS' previous estimate of 1.9% growth. A weak sequential growth of negative 5.9% in the fourth quarter pulled the full-year results down, the research firm pointed out.

Among the other top 10 semiconductor suppliers, Qualcomm captured the headlines with its 41.6% growth, propelling it up the rankings to No. 6 in 2011 from No. 9 in 2010. This massive increase gave Qualcomm a 3.3% market share in 2011, putting it close behind No. 5 Renesas Electronics, which had a 3.4% share.

Qualcomm had enjoyed an unbroken period of growth in its overall market share stretching back to at least 2000 until it saw its share dip during 2010, when the overall market experienced a strong rebound following the collapse of 2009. Because Qualcomm had successfully limited its revenue decline in 2009, it did not experience the same strong rebound in 2010 as other companies. However, Qualcomm saw its revenues and share of the market surge in 2011, taking it ever higher in the semiconductor rankings as the world's largest fabless semiconductor supplier.

Among the top 25 suppliers, ON Semi also saw a major boost in its market position by jumping eight positions to No. 18. Also making great strides was Nichia, whose success as a supplier of LEDs resulted in a growth increase of 34.1% and a move up to No. 23.

Illustrating the weakness of the semiconductor market in 2011, only about half of the 302 chip suppliers - or 52.6% - tracked by IHS increased their revenues in 2011 and achieved growth. Overall, companies headquartered in the Americas saw the greatest improvement to their semiconductor revenues among all regions, at 7.5% growth. In comparison, revenue fell 7.2% as a whole for Japan-based firms, which suffered from the impact of the 2011 earthquake.