In a ranking compiled by IC Insights, pure-play foundries and fabless companies emerged as the star performers in 2012, according to the market research firm.
IC Insights has ranked its top 25 semiconductor (ICs, and optoelectronics, sensors and discrete devices) sales leaders for 2012, which include three pure-play foundries and six fabless companies. In total, the top 25 semiconductor companies' sales declined by 1% in 2012, two points less than the total worldwide semiconductor market decrease of 3%.
Intel remained firmly in control of the number one spot in the ranking in 2012, IC Insights said. In fact, Intel's acquisition of Infineon's wireless IC business extended the company's lead over second-ranked Samsung Electronics by registering a 52% higher semiconductor sales level than Samsung in 2012 as compared to a 24% margin in 2010.
The only movement with regard to the top five spots in IC Insights' 2012 ranking was that fabless supplier Qualcomm registered a 34% surge in sales and moved up three positions to replace Texas Instruments (TI) as the fourth-largest semiconductor supplier.
Elpida Memory, which is due to be acquired by Micron Technology sometime in the first half of 2013, fell five spots to 24th place in 2012, IC Insights observed. However, if Micron's and Elpida's 2012 sales were combined, the new entity would have had US$11.077 billion in total sales and would have been ranked as the seventh-largest semiconductor supplier, only US$140 million behind sixth-ranked Toshiba, IC Insights indicated.
New entrants into the top 25 ranking in 2012 included Taiwan-based fabless communications chip specialist MediaTek, which moved from being ranked 26th in 2011 to 21st in 2012, IC Insights said. MediaTek is Taiwan's largest non-foundry semiconductor supplier. Japan-based Sharp jumped five positions in IC Insight's 2012 ranking and moved into the 22nd spot. Sharp's 14% total semiconductor sales increase in 2012 was spurred by a 20% surge in its O-S-D sales.
It is interesting to note that despite the close on-going relationship between Globalfoundries and AMD, the two companies were at opposite ends of the growth spectrum in 2012, IC Insights pointed out. Considering that AMD, the original "parent" and largest customer of Globalfoundries, suffered such a 17% sales decline in 2012, it is obvious that Globalfoundries' 31% revenue increase was driven mostly by its success in attracting new IC foundry customers (e.g., STMicroelectronics, Freescale, Qualcomm, etc.), IC Insights said.
The continued success of the fabless/foundry business model is evident when examining the top 25 semiconductor suppliers ranked by growth rate, IC Insights noted. The top seven performers included four fabless companies, Qualcomm, MediaTek, Broadcom and Nvidia - and two pure-play foundries, Globalfoundries and TSMC.
It should be noted that not all foundry sales should be excluded when attempting to create marketshare data, IC Insights said. For example, although Samsung has a large amount of foundry sales, most of its sales are to Apple. Since Apple does not re-sell these devices, counting these foundry sales as Samsung semiconductor sales does not introduce double counting.
IC Insights: Global top 25 semiconductor suppliers sales growth, 2012 (US$m)
| |||||
2012 rank
|
2011 rank
|
Company
|
2012 sales
|
2011 sales
|
Y/Y
|
4
|
7
|
Qualcomm
|
13,177
|
9,828
|
34%
|
15
|
21
|
Globalfoundries
|
4,560
|
3,480
|
31%
|
3
|
3
|
TSMC
|
17,167
|
14,600
|
18%
|
22
|
27
|
Sharp
|
3,304
|
2,908
|
14%
|
21
|
26
|
MediaTek
|
3,366
|
2,969
|
13%
|
11
|
11
|
Broadcom
|
7,793
|
7,160
|
9%
|
16
|
18
|
Nvidia
|
4,229
|
3,939
|
7%
|
18
|
17
|
NXP
|
4,157
|
4,147
|
0%
|
20
|
20
|
UMC
|
3,730
|
3,760
|
(1%)
|
1
|
1
|
Intel
|
49,114
|
49,697
|
(1%)
|
2
|
2
|
Samsung
|
32,251
|
33,483
|
(4%)
|
8
|
9
|
SK Hynix
|
9,057
|
9,403
|
(4%)
|
5
|
4
|
TI
|
12,147
|
12,900
|
(6%)
|
17
|
15
|
Fujitsu
|
4,162
|
4,430
|
(6%)
|
12
|
13
|
Sony
|
5,709
|
6,093
|
(6%)
|
10
|
10
|
Micron
|
8,002
|
8,571
|
(7%)
|
25
|
24
|
Rohm
|
3,030
|
3,303
|
(8%)
|
23
|
22
|
Marvell
|
3,157
|
3,445
|
(8%)
|
14
|
14
|
Infineon
|
4,993
|
5,599
|
(11%)
|
6
|
5
|
Toshiba
|
11,217
|
12,745
|
(12%)
|
7
|
6
|
Renesas
|
9,314
|
10,653
|
(13%)
|
9
|
8
|
ST
|
8,364
|
9,631
|
(13%)
|
19
|
16
|
Freescale
|
3,735
|
4,391
|
(15%)
|
13
|
12
|
AMD
|
5,422
|
6,568
|
(17%)
|
24
|
19
|
Elpida
|
3,075
|
3,891
|
(21%)
|
Top 25 total
|
234,232
|
237,594
|
1%)
| ||
Source: IC Insights, compiled by Digitimes, March 2013
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