Global semiconductor revenues fall 2.6 % in 2012

The global semiconductor revenues fell 2.6 per cent to $299.9 billion in 2012 from a year ago, even though Intel retained its leadership position and Samsung was in the second slot.

Qualcomm climbed to number three position from number six in 2011, making it the fastest-growing semiconductor company among the top 25 firms, according to a study by research and analysis firm Gartner.

The top 25 semiconductor vendors' revenue declined faster at 2.8 per cent than the industry as a whole, and accounted for almost the same portion of the industry's total revenue - 68.9 per cent in 2012 - compared with 69.0 percent in 2011, it said.

"The normal drivers of semiconductor industry growth - the computing, wireless, consumer electronics and automotive electronics sectors - all suffered serious disruption in 2012," Gartner Research Director Steve Ohr said.

"Even the industrial and medical, wired communications, military and aerospace sectors ? ordinarily less affected by changes in consumer sentiment ? suffered severe declines in semiconductor consumption," Ohr said, adding excess inventory levels remained a growth inhibitor.

Intel, with a 3.1 per cent revenue decline, due to falls in personal computer shipments, retained its leadership position for the 21st year in a row. Intel's share was 16.4 per cent in 2012, down from 16.5 per cent in 2011.

Samsung, the number two, was held back by weak DRAM bit growth in 2012, as well as a dilution of the NAND flash market, although its overall revenue increased from smartphone application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) and application-specific standard products (ASSPs).

Qualcomm's semiconductor revenue rose 31.8 per cent in 2012 to $13.2 billion. The company climbed from number six in 2011 to number three and now trails only Intel and Samsung. Qualcomm was the fastest-growing semiconductor company in the top 25 and continues to benefit from its leading position in wireless semiconductors.

Texas Instruments retained its fourth-place ranking, although Toshiba slipped to fifth place in semiconductor shipments.

Outperformers, underperformers
Market leaders in Gartner's Relative Industry Performance index include Qualcomm (which grew 18.2 per cent better than expected). The only other company to exceed expectation by more than 10 per cent was NXP.

On the other hand, three companies underperformed expectations by more than 10 per cent: Freescale, STMicroelectronics and AMD.

Gartner's annual semiconductor market share analysis examines and ranks the worldwide and regional revenue for more than 310 semiconductor suppliers in 64 separate product categories and eight major market categories.

It serves as a benchmark for semiconductor industry performance, as well as a means for individual companies to assess their revenue performance against their competitors'.

Top 10 semiconductor vendors by revenue, worldwide, 2012 (millions of dollars)