Semiconductor Revenue Up 10.4% In 2020, Intel Leads

The worldwide semiconductor revenue touched $466.2 billion in 2020 against $422.3 billion in 2019.

It a 10.4% increase in overall semiconductor revenue from 2019, according to Gartner.

“Memory, GPUs and 5G chipsets led semiconductor growth, driven by hyperscale, PC, ultramobile and 5G handset end-market demand,” said Andrew Norwood, Research VP – Gartner.

However, Norwood pointed out that automotive and industrial electronics suffered due to lower spending or a pause in spending owing to COVID-19.

Intel retained its position as the top global semiconductor vendor by revenue in 2020, followed by Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and Micron Technology (see Table 1). Intel’s semiconductor revenue grew 7.4%, driven by the growth of its core client and server CPU businesses.

Overall, the top performers in the top 10 were NVIDIA and MediaTek. NVIDIA’s 45.2% growth was primarily driven by the company’s gaming-related and data centre businesses.

MediaTek’s revenue grew 38.1% in 2020 driven by the disruption to Huawei’s business throughout the year.

Table 1. Top 10 Semiconductor Vendors by Revenue, Worldwide, 2020

2020 Rank	2019 Rank	Vendor	2020 Revenue	2020 Market Share (%)	2019 Revenue	2019-20 Growth (%)
1	1	Intel	72,759	15.6	67,754	7.4
2	2	Samsung Electronics	57,729	12.4	52,389	10.2
3	3	SK Hynix	25,854	5.5	22,297	16.0
4	4	Micron Technology	22,037	4.7	20,254	8.8
5	6	Qualcomm	17,632	3.8	13,613	29.5
6	5	Broadcom	15,754	3.4	15,322	2.8
7	7	Texas Instruments	13,619	2.9	13,364	1.9
8	13	MediaTek	10,988	2.4	7,958	38.1
9	16	NVIDIA	10,643	2.3	7,331	45.2
10	14	KIOXIA	10,374	2.2	7,827	32.5
		Others (outside top 10)	208,848	44.8	194,228	7.5
		Total Market	466,237	100.0	422,337	10.4

Source: Gartner (April 2021)

Memory accounted for one-third of revenue growth
In the overall semiconductor revenue, memory accounted for 26.7% of semiconductor sales in 2020, was the second best-performing device category, experiencing a 13.5% revenue increase.

“Memory benefited from the key trend in 2020 — the shift to home working and learning — which fueled increased server build from hyperscale vendors to satisfy online working and entertainment, as well as a surge in PCs and ultramobile,” said Norwood.

Within memory, NAND flash experienced the best performance with revenue growth of 25.2% due to a shortage in 1H20. “In 2021 both NAND flash and DRAM will be in shortage, sending pricing higher though the year and revenues rocketing by around 25%,” added Norwood.

“This sets memory focused Samsung up with a good chance of recapturing the top spot in the semiconductor market from Intel in 2021,” concluded Norwood.

Maru Pankaj

Guest Article