On August 19, the well-known market research organization IC insights released the latest market research report of the top ten semiconductor manufacturers, showing that in the second quarter of 2021 (April-June), Samsung once again replaced Intel and became the world’s largest semiconductor supplier.
According to data released by IC Insights, the latest ranking of the top ten global semiconductor manufacturers are Samsung, Intel, TSMC, SK Hynix, Micron, Qualcomm, Nvidia, Broadcom, MediaTek, and Texas Instruments.
Among the top ten manufacturers, six companies are headquartered in the United States, two companies are headquartered in South Korea, and two companies are headquartered in Taiwan, China.
In terms of overall data, the total revenue of the world’s top ten semiconductor manufacturers in the second quarter was 95.5 billion U.S. dollars, an increase of more than 10% over the first quarter. During the same period, the growth rate of the entire semiconductor industry was 8%. The competitiveness of leading companies is still stronger. of.
From the perspective of ranking changes, Samsung surpassed Intel to rush to the first position, NVIDIA surpassed Broadcom, and MediaTek and TI swapped positions at 9th and 10th. The ranking of the top ten manufacturers has not changed significantly, and the development of each company is relatively stable.
1. Samsung
Semiconductor manufacturers-Samsung and Intel’s quarterly revenue comparison chart (Source: IC insights)
During 2017/2018, Samsung relied on the large cycle of memory soaring at that time, and continuously suppressed Intel for multiple quarters, occupying the world’s number one semiconductor manufacturer. With the end of the memory market, Samsung also gave up its first position in 2019/2020, and Intel once again reached the top with its own huge framework.
In the second quarter of this year, another wave of the market for DRAM and NAND flash memory has arrived, and demand and quotations have been rising. In the second quarter of this year, Samsung’s revenue increased by 19% quarter-on-quarter to US$20.3 billion. The last time Samsung’s revenue exceeded US$20 billion was in 2018.
With the arrival of the traditional peak season, Samsung’s sales are expected to increase by another 10% to 22.3 billion US dollars in the third quarter, further expanding its lead over Intel. But recently there is demand for memory price reductions, and perhaps soon, Samsung will return the number one position to Intel.
2. Intel
Since the memory market cycle, Intel has been unable to stop Samsung anyway. In the second quarter, Intel temporarily ranked second with 19.3 billion U.S. dollars in revenue.
Intel changed its new CEO and reinvested in the foundry field in the first half of 2021. In addition to investing and building factories in the United States, Intel actively travels to Europe, hoping to get more support.
3. TSMC
As the global foundry leader, TSMC has earned more than 50% of the market share in this global core shortage. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd. has recently become the No. 1 in Asia semiconductor manufacturers in terms of market value under the abandonment of Tencent.
In the second quarter, TSMC’s total revenue was NT$372.145 billion (approximately US$13.3 billion), an increase of 19.8% compared to the same period last year.
Globally, TSMC has mastered most of the production capacity of advanced technology. At present, only Samsung has a battle at 7nm and 5nm, but Samsung is obviously inferior to TSMC in terms of production capacity, yield, and chip performance. Nowadays, more and more chips such as mobile phones and automobiles are produced using advanced technology. TSMC’s advanced technology will still be in short supply in the next few years.
In terms of mature processes, TSMC announced an investment of US$2.887 billion to expand the production capacity of 28nm mature processes in Nanjing. It is expected to be mass-produced in the second half of 2022 and will complete the construction of a monthly production capacity of 40,000 wafers in the middle of 2023.
4. SK Hynix
Also benefiting from the increase in memory demand and price, SK Hynix’s sales in the second quarter reached 9.213 billion US dollars, an increase of 21% from the first quarter, the highest increase in the list, and Samsung ranked second with a quarterly increase of 19%.
SK Hynix said that the demand for PC, image processing, and consumer-level storage has increased significantly, and the demand for server storage has also recovered, which has led to the improvement of performance. In addition, sales of cutting-edge technology products such as the second-generation (1y) and third-generation (1z) 10-nanometer-level DRAM and 128-layer NAND flash memory has improved, prompting the company’s cost competitiveness to further improve. As a result, sales and operating profit increased by 22% and 103% respectively compared with the previous quarter.
5. Micron
The same storage giants, Samsung and SK Hynix rose, and Micron has no reason not to rise. IC insights announced the list data shows that Micron’s revenue in the second quarter was 7.681 billion US dollars, an increase of 16% over the first quarter.
According to Micron’s financial report, Micron’s third-quarter revenue was US$7.42 billion, and the market was expected to be US$7.238 billion, compared to only US$5.438 billion in the same period last year; net profit was US$1.735 billion, an increase of 116% year-on-year.
Mehrotra, President of Micron, said that Micron created a number of market and product revenue records in the third quarter and achieved the largest single-quarter profit increase in history. Among them, DRAM sales in the third quarter accounted for 73% of revenue, or 5.42 billion U.S. dollars, an annual increase of 50.9%.
6. Qualcomm
Qualcomm Semiconductor’s sales in the second quarter were $6.472 billion.
According to Qualcomm’s QCT business details, the revenue of mobile phone chips in the third quarter of the fiscal year 2021 increased by 57% annually to US$3.863 billion, the revenue of RF front-end chips increased by 114% annually to US$957 million, and the revenue of automotive chips increased by 83% annually. To 253 million U.S. dollars, Internet of Things (IoT) chip revenue increased 83% annually to 1.399 billion U.S. dollars.
Qualcomm CEO Amon said that in addition to leading the 5G transformation, as the business continues to diversify, Qualcomm will also pay $10 billion in annual revenue in the RF front-end, Internet of Things, and automotive fields.
7. NVIDIA
Nvidia’s popularity in the past two years has been quite high. In addition to acquiring ARM at a sky-high price of US$40 billion, Nvidia has made great breakthroughs in terms of product, stock price, and market value.
A face-to-face “fake” press conference has even ignited the industry’s attention to AI synthesis special effects.
Data show that Nvidia’s sales in the second quarter reached US$5.54 billion. Among them, the graphics business unit revenue reached 3.91 billion US dollars, an increase of 87%, reflecting the strong demand for GPU chips in the global market. (About AMD’s GPU)
With the increasing importance of big data and cloud computing, NVIDIA’s data center business is also increasing.
8. Broadcom
The financial report shows that in the second quarter of fiscal 2021, the company’s revenue was $6.61 billion, a year-on-year increase of 15%. Among them, semiconductor solutions business revenue was 4.82 billion U.S. dollars, an increase of 20% year on year.
Through acquisitions, Broadcom has integrated many advantageous resources in the semiconductor field. After the transition to software in recent years, revenue in the software segment has also grown rapidly. Broadcom’s infrastructure software business revenue in the second quarter was US$1.79 billion, a year-on-year increase of 4%.
9. MediaTek
Under the background of insufficient global foundry production capacity and chip shortages, MediaTek has the geographical advantage of close contact with foundries by being located in Taiwan. For a long time, it hasn’t been affected much.
Thanks to the guarantee of production capacity, MediaTek’s performance in the first half of the year was gratifying, with revenue of 4.496 billion US dollars, an increase of 17% over the first quarter, which was the largest increase outside of the top ten memory factories.
With the help of 5G, MediaTek also surpassed Qualcomm in terms of mobile phone processor shipments and took first place. The quarter-on-quarter growth in revenue was mainly due to the continuous growth of 5G smartphones and various Internet of Things devices and the year-on-year growth was mainly due to the increase in market share of 5G smartphones and WiFi 6 and the growth in sales of consumer electronics products.
10. TI
TI, as the major competitor among semiconductor manufacturers in the field of analog chips, has always been a benchmark enterprise in the industry. On normal days, TI’s products are quite in short supply.
In today’s out-of-stock environment, TI’s materials are even tenser. In the second quarter, TI’s semiconductor business revenue was US$4.299 billion, but it fell to the tenth goalkeeper position. TI’s quarterly growth of 7% is not bad, mainly because MediaTek’s 17% increase is too large and too fast.
The good news is that recently there is news that TI’s delivery time for PC customers has been slightly shortened, and the slight improvement in delivery time has been very encouraging.
