‘Sales in the semiconductor market exceeded 150 billion dollars in the third quarter’
Semiconductor sales rose 7.6 percent in the third quarter of this year. This put the total turnover above 150 billion dollars. The latter is the first since 2002, according to research agency Omdia.
Based on Omdia’s data, Business Korea, among others, writes that Samsung Electronics is now at the top of the list of sales figures. The company had revenue of $20.96 billion in the third quarter; a growth of 13 percent compared to the second quarter. This has knocked Intel off the throne; this company had revenues of $18.79 billion, up from $19.13 billion in the previous quarter.
It would be the first time in 11 quarters that Intel is no longer in the top spot, according to Omdia data. Samsung Electronics managed to overtake Intel in the second quarter of 2017, but the American chipmaker took over the top spot again in the fourth quarter of 2018. Since then, Intel has remained at the top, until the third quarter of this year.
SK Hynix is in third place with $9.98 billion, up 10.8 percent from the previous quarter. Then comes Micron, with revenues of $7.84 billion, compared to $7.14 billion a quarter earlier. According to Omdia, Qualcomm is the biggest climber. The company had sales of $7.73 billion, an increase of 19.5 percent from its revenue in the second quarter of this year.
Omdia researchers say chip shortages, seasonality and strong sales in the memory sector have been important factors. According to the research firm, the memory sector contributed most to the overall sales increase and also contributed significantly to Samsung Electronics’ top spot.
Memory accounted for 29 percent of all semiconductor sales and this segment grew 12 percent from the second quarter of this year. Display drivers and image sensors had even higher growth at 13 and 17 percent respectively, but the memory market is five times larger than these two sectors combined. Within the memory market, nand rose to all-time high quarterly sales; from 16.4 to 18.7 billion dollars.