A boom in memory sales in the first half of 2013 has resulted in numerous changes in the ranking of top 20 semiconductor vendors by sales revenue, according to market research firm IC Insights Inc.
The top four climbers were SK Hynix, Qualcomm, MediaTek, and TSMC. Yet companies heavily dependent on the PC market, such as Intel and AMD, saw year-on-year sales declines. Meanwhile second-ranked Samsung, while not demonstrating strong growth, was able to continue to catch the world's largest chipmaker Intel.
The list of top 20 worldwide semiconductor companies (including producers of ICs, discrete, optoelectronic, and sensor chips) for the first half of 2013 include three pure-play foundries (TSMC, GlobalFoundries, and UMC) and four fabless companies. It also includes eight suppliers headquartered in the US, four in Japan, three in Europe, three in Taiwan, and two in South Korea.
IC Insights defends the inclusion of fabbed, fabless, and foundry companies in its ranking -- which might invoke double-counting of some sales -- by saying the list is not a market-share ranking.
Other notable climbers included Broadcom, which entered the top 10, and Elpida, which was officially purchased by Micron on July 31, 2013. (The combination of Micron's and Elpida's sales would have given the united entity about $6.7 billion in sales in the first half of 2013, which would have elevated Micron-Elpida to fifth in the rankings.)
Fallers in the first half of 2013 included Fujitsu, down five places and out of the top 20 ranking, and Nvidia, which went from being ranked 18th in 2012 to 21st in the first half of 2013, even though the company posted a 2 percent increase in year-over-year sales. Japanese vendors suffered in particular with a stronger yen compared to a year prior.
In total, the top 20 semiconductor companies’ sales increased by 4 percent in the first half of 2013 when compared with the first half of 2012, one point better than the total first-half 2013/first-half 2012 worldwide semiconductor market increase of 3 percent. | 