Intel Widens Lead Over Samsung in 1Q11 Ranking

Intel remained firmly in control of the number one spot in the first quarter top semiconductor supplier ranking, according to market analyst IC Insights. In fact, Intel extended its lead over second-ranked Samsung by registering a 44 percent higher sales level than Samsung in 1Q11 as compared to a 24 percent margin for all of 2010.

Nvidia's 1Q11/1Q10 sales declined by 6 percent, but it replaced Panasonic, whose 1Q11/1Q10 sales declined by 9 percent, in the top 20 ranking. As shown in Figure 1, there are two pure-play foundries in the top 20 ranking. Excluding these two foundry companies, Marvell and ON Semiconductor would have been included in the top 20 ranking. It should be noted that with ON's purchase of Sanyo Semiconductor in 1Q11, its 1Q11/1Q10 semiconductor sales jumped by 58 percent (from $550 million in 1Q10 to $$871 in 1Q11).


Figure 1

In total, the top 20 semiconductor suppliers showed an 11 percent increase in 1Q11 sales as compared to 1Q10. This growth rate is one point greater than IC Insights' full-year 2011 worldwide semiconductor market forecast of 10 percent.

As shown in Figure 2, there was a wide range of year-over-year growth rates among the top 20 suppliers in 1Q11. Unlike last year, the memory companies did not secure the top growth rate positions. In fact, the top six 1Q11/1Q10 growth rate increases were logged by non-memory suppliers.


Figure 2

Of the big five memory suppliers in the top 20 ranking (i.e., Samsung, Toshiba, Hynix, Micron, and Elpida), all but Elpida registered 1Q11/1Q10 growth. However, with strong results from their flash memory products helping to offset weakness in their DRAM segments, Samsung, Micron, and Toshiba were each able to display double-digit 1Q11/1Q10 semiconductor sales increases. In contrast, DRAM-dependent Elpida registered the worst 1Q11/1Q10 performance with a 31 percent drop in revenue.

Among the top 20 suppliers, only seven companies outperformed the total worldwide semiconductor industry 1Q11/1Q10 growth rate of 10 percent. Of the top seven performers, there was only one memory producer—Samsung. The remaining top performing companies included MPU supplier Intel, pure-play foundry TSMC, and logic-intensive suppliers like Broadcom, Qualcomm, Fujitsu, and Freescale.

IC Insights