AMD turnover will grow fastest of all chip companies in 2021
AMD’s revenue from chips is growing fastest of all semiconductor companies this year. This is reported by analyst firm IC Insights in its annual McClean report. The turnover of MediaTek, Nvidia and Qualcomm will also grow strongly in 2021, while the chip turnover of Intel will decrease slightly.
According to IC Insights, AMD will achieve 65 percent more revenue this year compared to 2020. The analyst firm reports that the chip company is gaining market share in many market segments. AMD’s revenue from EPYC CPUs for data center servers in particular is said to have risen sharply. IC Insights writes that AMD has become a ‘leading supplier’ in this market segment. The company released its third-generation EPYC Milan processors with Zen 3 cores in March, and last week announced its EPYC Milan-X CPUs with 3D V-Cache. AMD’s most recent quarterly figures also show that the company is increasing revenue in the data center segment. According to the previous McClean report, AMD had a turnover of more than $9.5 billion in 2020, placing it in 15th place.
Revenue growth per company. Source: IC Insights
In addition to AMD, the revenues of MediaTek, Nvidia and Qualcomm also grew strongly in 2021. According to IC Insights, MediaTek is on track to record a revenue growth of 60 percent in 2021. Chips from that company are used in smartphones, televisions, Chromebooks and routers, for example. Nvidia’s revenue is expected to grow 54 percent, while smartphone chip designer Qualcomm is expected to grow 51 percent over last year. The combined chip sales of AMD, MediaTek, Nvidia and Qualcomm should increase from $54.8 billion to $85.4 billion in 2021. That is a growth of 56 percent.
The analyst firm also expects ten chip companies to experience a turnover growth of more than thirty percent in 2021. This also includes the Chinese chip manufacturer SMIC, South Korean chip makers SK Hynix and Samsung, Renesas from Japan and the American GlobalFoundries. Global chip shipments are expected to increase by 23 percent this year.
It is striking that Intel’s chip turnover in 2021 will decrease by one percent compared to last year. This is partly due to chip shortages, which hampered Intel’s deliveries of laptop chips. The company has indicated that its partners have been unable to obtain sufficient components to produce laptops, which has led to a drop in orders for Intel laptop processors.
Intel achieved chip sales of $73.9 billion in 2020, maintaining its lead, IC Insights reported in its previous McClean report. IC Insights does not list total revenue for the companies this year, but based on the percentage changes and the previous figures from IC Insights, Intel may be overtaken by chip manufacturer Samsung this year. Intel would then finish in second place.
Sony’s chip sales continue to fall by three percent. That company has, among other things, delivered fewer PS5 consoles than expected due to the ongoing chip shortages. Sony and Taiwanese chip manufacturer TSMC are going to build a chip factory in Japan, although it will not produce PS5 chips.