WEBONL
Worldwide semiconductor revenue totaled $595 billion in 2021, a 26.3 per cent increase from 2020, according to Gartner, Inc.
“The events behind the current chip shortage continue to impact original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) around the world, but the 5G smartphone ramp up and a combination of strong demand and logistics/raw material price increases drove semiconductor average selling prices (ASPs) higher, contributing to significant revenue growth in 2021,” said Andrew Norwood, research vice president at Gartner.
Top players
Samsung Electronics regained the top spot from Intel for the first time since 2018, though by less than a percentage point, with revenue growing 28 per cent in 2021.
Intel’s revenue declined 0.3 per cent, garnering 12.2 per cent market share compared to Samsung’s 12.3 per cent market share.
Intel was followed by SK Hynix, Micron Technology and Qualcomm with 6.1 per cent, 4.8 per cent and 4.6 per cent market share, respectively in 2021. Broadcom held a 3.2 per cent share.
Within the top 10, AMD and Mediatek experienced the strongest growth in 2021 at 68.6 per cent and 60.2 per cent growth, respectively with a market share of 2.7 per cent and 3 per cent, respectively. Texas Instruments took the seventh spot in the top 10 with a 2.9 per cent share while NVIDIA took the ninth spot with a 2.8 per cent market share.
The most significant shift among the semiconductor vendor ranking in 2021 was HiSilicon dropping out of the top 25.
HiSilicon’s revenue declined 81 per cent, from $8.2 billion in 2020 to $1.5 billion in 2021,” said Norwood.
“This was a direct result of the US sanctions against the company and its parent company Huawei” Norwood said.
As per Norwood, this also impacted China’s share of the semiconductor market as it declined from 6.7 per cent market share in 2020 to 6.5 per cent in 2021.
South Korea witnessed the largest increase in market share in 2021 as strong growth in the memory market propelled South Korea to garner 19.3 per cent of the global semiconductor market.
“2021 saw stronger demand return to the automotive and industrial markets compared to the weak, Covid-disrupted market in 2020,” as per the report.
The automotive semiconductor market grew 34.9 per cent in 2021 outperforming all other end markets.
Wireless communications, which is dominated by smartphones, recorded a growth of 24.6 per cent.
The number of 5G handsets produced reached 556 million in 2021, up from 251 million units in 2020, and enterprises upgraded their Wi-Fi infrastructure for employees heading back to the office.
Driven by DRAM, memory accounted for 27.9 per cent of semiconductor sales in 2021 and experienced 33.2 per cent revenue growth, up $41.3 billion over the previous year.
“Memory continued to benefit from the key demand trend in the last couple of years — the shift to home/hybrid working and learning. This trend fueled increased server deployments by hyperscale cloud service providers to satisfy online working and entertainment, as well as a surge in end-market demand for PCs and ultramobiles,” as per the report.