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Semiconductor Industry Rankings for First Three Quarters of 2008- IC Insights

Articles:

1. Top 20 chip Suppliers: iSuppli's Preliminary 2008 Rankings

2. 54-Point Growth Rate Swing Within Top 20 Supplier Ranking / Electronics.ca

3.Qualcomm leaps into top 10 among chip suppliers / EETimes

 

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1. Top 20 chip Suppliers: iSuppli's Preliminary 2008 Rankings

Dylan McGrath
(12/01/2008 1:07 PM EST)
URL: http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=212201149
 
SAN FRANCISCO—Six of the top 10 semiconductor companies are expected to suffer revenue declines in 2008, with the broader industry hamstrung by a "disastrous" year for the memory chip segment, according to market research firm iSuppli Corp.'s preliminary rankings of the top 20 chip suppliers for the year.

Of the six companies that are expected to see revenue declines, three are not focused on memory: Texas Instruments Inc., Renesas Technology Corp. and Sony Corp., iSuppli said. The other top 10 suppliers expected to endure revenue declines are Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Toshiba Corp. and Hynix Semiconductor Inc., the firm said.

"Global semiconductor revenue is expected to decline by 2 percent in 2008 due to a 16.9 percent plunge in sales of memory integrated circuits (ICs)," said Dale Ford, iSuppli's senior vice president of market intelligence services, in a statement.

 


Click on image to enlarge.

 

Only two of the 29 memory suppliers with expected 2008 revenue of $100 million or more will see memory IC revenue growth in 2008, according to Ford. "For the memory IC business, 2008 can only be described as disastrous," he said.

If memory revenue was excluded from the total semiconductor market, the remaining chip industry would grow by 2 percent in 2008, according to iSuppli's preliminary estimate. Memory will account for 17.9 percent of global semiconductor revenue in 2008, according to the firm.

"In the face of increasingly negative economic news, orders for semiconductors have virtually stopped, leading to great fear and uncertainty throughout the entire semiconductor industry," Ford said.

This year will mark the second consecutive annual revenue contraction in global memory revenue, following a 3.9 percent decline in 2007, iSuppli said. Every memory segment will decline in 2008: DRAM is expected to decline by 19.8 percent, NOR flash by 16.2 percent, SRAM by 16.1 percent and NAND flash by 13.1 percent, iSuppli said. This will be the first time in the history of the NAND market that revenue will decline on an annual basis, iSuppli said.

Memory suppliers will experience some of the largest declines among the top 20 chip suppliers in 2008, according iSuppli's preliminary ranking. The worst performer among the Top-20 chip suppliers is expected to be Hynix, whose revenue is set to drop by 29.1 percent in 2008, the firm said, causing Hynix to fall from six to nine on the list.

Micron Technology Inc. is set for a 9.2 percent revenue decrease in 2008, causing its ranking in the overall semiconductor market to slip by one position to 16, iSuppli said. Samsung, the world's largest memory supplier and the No. 2 chipmaker, is set for a 9.1 percent revenue decline for the year, iSuppli (El Segundo, Calif.) said.

Other notable decreases expected include Qimonda AG (40.7 percent), Taiwan's Nanya Technology Corp., (29.1 percent) and Powerchip Semiconductor Corp. (23.4 percent), according to iSuppli.

"About the only good thing that can be said about the 16.9 percent decline in memory revenue in 2008 is that it pales in comparison to the 48.2 percent plunge in 2001," Ford said. "However, the dot-com-bust decline in 2001 was preceded by a 42.7 percent surge in 2000."

Only a few segments of the semiconductor industry are expected to experience strength in 2008. Year-over-year revenue growth is expected in programmable logic (7.6 percent) optical components (6.2 percent), microprocessors (5.7 percent), microcontrollers (3.3 percent) and ASICs (3 percent), according to iSuppli.

ISuppli said it plans to issue a final semiconductor market-share ranking in early 2009.

 

 

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2. 54-Point Growth Rate Swing Within Top 20 Supplier Ranking

Qualcomm shows largest gain (+27%) while Hynix registers biggest decline (-27%)

A recent research for November Update to The McClean Report includes an analysis of the top 20 semiconductor suppliers for 1Q-3Q08 (Figure 1). There are eight U.S. companies in the top 20 (including three Fabless semiconductor suppliers), six Japanese, three European, two South Korean, and one Taiwanese company (IC Foundry supplier TSMC) in the ranking. As shown, it required at least $3.0 billion in 1Q-3Q08 sales to make the top 20 ranking. Although the top four ranked companies remained the same, and most of the other top 20 suppliers moved up or down only one or two spots in the ranking, there were a few companies that displayed significant changes in their 1Q-3Q08 ranking as compared to their full-year 2007 positions.

Major Changes in the Ranking Include:

  • Cell phone IC supplier Qualcomm used a 27% year-over-year growth rate to jump five spots and rank as the 9th largest semiconductor supplier through the first three quarters of 2008.

  • The third largest fabless supplier, Broadcom, jumped five positions and is now positioned as the 18th largest semiconductor supplier in the world.

  • DRAM-supplier Qimonda's nightmare worsened in 3Q08 as the company dropped 12 positions from being ranked 18th overall in 2007 to 30th in the first three quarters of 2008.

  • With a 5% decline in 1Q-3Q08/1Q-3Q07 sales, NXP fell five spots to 15th from 10th in 2007. For all of 2008, the company's sales are forecast to decline 11% as compared to 2007.

Summary:

With some major DRAM and Flash suppliers (e.g., Qimonda, Elpida, and Spansion) no longer part of the top 20 ranking, the total 1Q-3Q08/1Q-3Q07 sales of the top 20 semiconductor suppliers displayed a relatively strong 6% increase as compared to the total worldwide semiconductor market increase of 4%. Among the top 20 semiconductor suppliers, there was a 54-point swing (Figure 2) from the company that showed the fastest growth (Qualcomm at +27%) to the company that registered the steepest decline (Hynix at -27%).




Figure 1

As shown in Figure 2, eight of the top 20 companies had double-digit 1Q-3Q08/1Q-3Q07 growth rates. Moreover, all of these companies registered 1Q-3Q08 growth rates that were more than three times the 4% growth rate of the entire 1Q-3Q08 semiconductor market. It goes to show that there are still "strong" performers in a "slow" market.

Given the current state of the worldwide economy and the weakening semiconductor markets, IC Insights expects that the top 20 semiconductor suppliers, in total, will register 4Q08 sales of $43.2 billion, a decline of 8% sequentially. It should be noted that the "star" growth company in the first three quarters of 2008, Qualcomm, has warned that its calendar year 4Q08/3Q08 sales are expected to drop about 28%! However, its current full-year 2009 WCDMA/CDMA cellular phone device shipment forecast is +25%, essentially the same growth expected for 2008.

For full-year 2008, the top 20 semiconductor suppliers are forecast to have combined sales of $182.2 billion, a 2% increase over 2007. This 2% increase is the same growth rate expected for the 2008/2007 worldwide semiconductor market.




Figure 2

 

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3.Qualcomm leaps into top 10 among chip suppliers
Dylan McGrath (11/06/2008 8:25 PM EST)
URL: htt://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=212001139
 
SAN FRANCISO—Qualcomm Inc. used a 27 percent year-over-year growth rate to jump to ninth among the largest semiconductor suppliers through the first three quarters of 2008, while DRAM-supplier Qimonda dropped 12 positions from 18 to 30 overall, according to market research firm IC Insights Inc.

According to data compiled as part of IC Insights' top 20 semiconductor suppliers list for the first three quarters, Broadcom Corp. jumped from 23 to 18 among the rankings of chip firms. Broadcom also leapfrogged Nvidia Corp. to become the second largest fabless chip vendor, according to the data.

NXP Semiconductors fell five spots to 15th from 10th in 2007 as sales declined 5 percent through the first three quarters, according to IC Insights. For all of 2008, the company's sales are forecast to decline 11 percent as compared to 2007, IC Insights said.

With some major DRAM and flash suppliers no longer among the top 20 chip suppliers, total sales for the group through the first three quarters of the year displayed a relatively strong 6 percent increase as compared a total worldwide semiconductor market increase of 4 percent, according to IC Insights.

 

 

Given the current state of the worldwide economy and the weakening semiconductor markets, IC Insights expects that the top 20 semiconductor suppliers will register cumulative sales of $43.2 billion in the fourth quarter, a decline of 8 percent sequentially.

For full-year 2008, the top 20 semiconductor suppliers are forecast to have combined sales of $182.2 billion, a 2 percent increase over 2007, IC Insights said. This 2 percent increase is the same annual growth rate now expected for the worldwide semiconductor market, the firm added.

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