Semiconductor market rebounds to reach $300bn in revenues

The semiconductor market fell just short of the milestone $300bn (£184.4bn) revenue threshold in 2010.

Worldwide revenue rose by $70.7bn (£43.5bn), or 30.9 per cent, to reach $299.4bn, the largest increase in the market’s value in any single year, according to figures released by Gartner today.

The strong growth did little to affect vendor rankings, as Intel held the top spot for the 19th consecutive year.

However, a small dip in Intel's overall market share from 14.6 per cent in 2009 to 14 per cent in 2010 came at the hands of commodity memory vendors, which showed the strongest growth.

The upturn was down to pent-up demand during the worldwide recession, the rebuilding of semiconductor inventories depleted during the recession, and early recovery, explained Peter Middleton, a principal analyst at Gartner.

"The market began to surge in the second half of 2009, as demand recovery in a variety of market sectors resulted in strong order rates,” he said.

“This continued, almost frantically, during the first half of 2010 as demand soared, prices rose, and we saw lead times expanding significantly."

Gartner said that the top 25 semiconductor suppliers accounted for 69.1 per cent of industry revenue in 2010.

The top five ranked positions remained unchanged from 2009, where Samsung Electronics came in second owing to its exposure in growing DRAM and NAND flash markets, said the analyst.

Toshiba grew semiconductor revenue 28.7 per cent in 2010 to retain its number three position. The company improved its NAND flash memory business for mobile devices, as well as its discrete and optical electronics devices businesses. 

Texas Instruments and STMicroelectronics rounded out the top five. 

Meanwhile, Broadcom leapt into the top 10 from 12th last year, out-performing the rest of the competition by a large margin with 53 per cent growth.

Gartner said that all three of its business units - broadband, mobile and wireless, and infrastructure and networking - performed well.