According to final results by Gartner Inc, worldwide semiconductor revenue totalled $466.2 billion in 2020, an increase of 10.4% from 2019.
Commenting on the findings, Gartner Research Vice President Andrew Norwood said memory, GPUs and 5G chipsets led to semiconductor growth.
“It is also driven by hyperscale, PC, ultramobile and 5G handset end-market demand, while automotive and industrial electronics suffered due to lower spending or a pause in spending owing to Covid-19,” said Andrew Norwood.
Intel retained its position as the No. 1 global semiconductor vendor by revenue in 2020, followed by Samsung Electronics, SK hynix and Micron (see Table 1). Intel’s semiconductor revenue grew 7.4%, driven by the growth of its core client and server CPU businesses.
Overall, the top performers in the top 10 were NVIDIA and MediaTek. NVIDIA’s 45.2% growth was primarily driven by the company’s gaming-related and data centre businesses. MediaTek’s revenue grew 38.1% in 2020 driven by the disruption to Huawei’s business throughout the year.
Table 1. Top 10 Semiconductor Vendors by Revenue, Worldwide, 2020 (Millions of U.S. Dollars)
|
2020 Rank |
2019 Rank |
Vendor |
2020 Revenue |
2020 Market Share (%) |
2019 Revenue |
2019-2020 Growth (%) |
|
1 |
1 |
Intel |
72,759 |
15.6 |
67,754 |
7.4 |
|
2 |
2 |
Samsung Electronics |
57,729 |
12.4 |
52,389 |
10.2 |
|
3 |
3 |
SK hynix |
25,854 |
5.5 |
22,297 |
16.0 |
|
4 |
4 |
Micron Technology |
22,037 |
4.7 |
20,254 |
8.8 |
|
5 |
6 |
Qualcomm |
17,632 |
3.8 |
13,613 |
29.5 |
|
6 |
5 |
Broadcom |
15,754 |
3.4 |
15,322 |
2.8 |
|
7 |
7 |
Texas Instruments |
13,619 |
2.9 |
13,364 |
1.9 |
|
8 |
13 |
MediaTek |
10,988 |
2.4 |
7,958 |
38.1 |
|
9 |
16 |
NVIDIA |
10,643 |
2.3 |
7,331 |
45.2 |
|
10 |
14 |
KIOXIA |
10,374 |
2.2 |
7,827 |
32.5 |
|
Others (outside top 10) |
208,848 |
44.8 |
194,228 |
7.5 |
||
|
Total Market |
466,237 |
100.0 |
422,337 |
10.4 |
Source: Gartner (April 2021)
Memory Accounted for One-Third of Revenue Growth
Memory, which accounted for 26.7% of semiconductor sales in 2020, was the second best-performing device category, experiencing a 13.5% revenue increase.
“Memory benefited from the key trend in 2020 – the shift to home working and learning – which fuelled increased server build from hyperscale vendors to satisfy online working and entertainment, as well as a surge in PCs and ultramobiles,” said Mr. Norwood.
Within memory, NAND flash experienced the best performance with revenue growth of 25.2% due to a shortage in 1H20.
“In 2021 both NAND flash and DRAM will be in shortage, sending pricing higher though the year and revenues rocketing by around 25%” said Mr. Norwood.
He also points out that this sets memory focused Samsung up with a good chance of recapturing the top spot in the semiconductor market from Intel in 2021.
Gartner clients can get more information in “Market Share Analysis: Semiconductors, Worldwide, 2020.”
