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Semiconductor ranking tabulated


Tuesday, August 5, 2008

While Intel, Samsung, Texas Instruments and Toshiba maintained their top four spots in IC Insights top 20 semiconductor supplier ranking for the first half of the year, the market research company uncovered a big shakeup in ranking, which includes 8 US companies, including three fabless semiconductor suppliers; 6 Japanese companies; 3 European companies; 2 South Korean; and one Taiwanese company.

The one Taiwanese company in the top 20 ranking is Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), which grew its first half revenue by 35% over revenue from the first half of 2007.

As shown in Figure 1 below, it required at least $2.1 billion in first half sales to make the top 20 ranking.

 

While the top four ranked companies remained the same, there were a number of movers and shakers up and down the first half ranking as compared to their full-year 2007 positions.

Companies that climbed the ranking include cell phone IC supplier Qualcomm, which used a 29% year-over-year first half growth rate to move up four spots and rank as the 10th largest semiconductor supplier in the first half.

The third largest fabless supplier, Broadcom, jumped up three positions and is now positioned as the 20th largest semiconductor supplier in the world, while Japanese consumer electronics powerhouse Panasonic, formerly called Matsushita, and NEC were boosted by the strong Japanese yen versus the US dollar, with each jumping three places and moving into the 18th and 12th positions, respectively.

Also, moving up one place each in the first half were TSMC, Renesas, and Infineon.

At the same time, companies that moved down in the top 20 ranking include DRAM-supplier Qimonda, whose nightmare continued in the first half as the company dropped 12 positions from being ranked 18th overall in 2007 to 30th in the first half of this year. The company endured a 1H08/1H07 sales decline of 47%, which would have been worse if not for the strength of the euro, and suffered a loss of more than $2.2 billion in its first three quarters of fiscal 2008

For NXP, despite a relatively flat 1H08/1H07 sales result, the company fell four spots to 14th from 10th place, while AMD posted a decent 9% increase in 1H08/1H07 sales, yet still slid four positions from 11th to 15th place.

8th place ranked memory supplier Hynix fell only one spot in the ranking although it’s 1H08/1H07 sales tumbled 23%, which was the only 1H08/1H07 sales decline of any top 20 semiconductor supplier.

For STMicroelectronics, the company fell one position in the ranking and now occupies the 6th spot. IC Insights noted that the company’s 1H08 and 1H07 figures do not include FMG (the flash memory group) sales, which are now part of Numonyx’ sales. ST registered a solid 13% year-over-year growth rate in 1H08 and has a relatively positive outlook for its second half as well.

Finally, TI did not drop in the ranking but the company registered the second-worst growth rate of any top 20 semiconductor supplier in 1H08 of 0%. TI has been a significant supplier to the cellular handset market segment for many years, but IC Insights believes it would be wise not to extrapolate the company’s weak 1H08 performance to the overall cell phone marketplace. In addition, the excellent 1H08 performance of Qualcomm and ST, also major IC suppliers to the cell phone industry, appears to indicate that TI’s poor 1H08 results are more a reflection of a TI-specific “problem” than an overall cell phone market issue.

With many of the major DRAM and flash suppliers (such as Qimonda, Elpida, Spansion, Powerchip and Nanya) no longer part of the top 20 ranking, the total 1H08/1H07 sales of the top 20 semiconductor suppliers displayed a very strong 10% increase as compared to the total worldwide semiconductor market increase of 6%. Among the top 20 semiconductor suppliers, there was a 58-point swing (shown in Figure 2 below) from the company that showed the fastest growth (TSMC at +35%) to the company that registered the steepest decline (Hynix at -23%).

 

As shown in Figure 2 (above), more than half of the top 20 companies had double-digit 1H08/1H07 growth rates. Moreover, seven companies registered 1H08 growth rates that were more than three times the 6% growth rate of the entire 1H08 semiconductor market (TSMC, Qualcomm, Panasonic, Nvidia, Samsung, Broadcom, and Infineon), which shows that there are still star performers in a slow market, IC Insights pointed out.

Currency fluctuations are playing a big part in the 2008 semiconductor market figures as the strong yen and euro are converted into US dollars. With the yen and euro each increasing in value 13% in 1H08 as compared to 1H07, many Japanese and European companies’ results are getting a “boost” when converted to US dollars. As such, this currency effect will also serve to inflate the 2008 worldwide semiconductor market figures when reported in US dollars, IC Insights concluded.

By: DocMemory
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