As previously disclosed in November, the semiconductor industry will post a revenue decline for just the sixth time in the last 25 years, with worldwide revenue totaling $226 billion in 2009, an 11.4 percent decline from 2008, according to Gartner.

"Revenue dropped precipitously in the first quarter of 2009, continuing a deterioration which started in the last quarter of 2008," said Stephan Ohr, semiconductor research director at Gartner, in a statement. "A small uptick, noted toward the end of the first quarter, led to significant quarter-over-quarter growth in the periods that followed."

Gartner also released its preliminary top-10 IC rankings for 2009. Who are the winners and losers?

Winners: Advanced Micro Devices Inc., Hynix Semiconductor Inc., Qualcomm Inc.

Losers: Infineon Technologies AG, NEC Electronics Corp., Renesas Technology Corp.

No prize: Intel Corp., Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Toshiba Corp., Texas Instruments Inc., STMicroelectronics Inc.

Honorable Mention: MediaTek

Intel Corp. held the No. 1 position for the 18th consecutive year, despite revenue declines, and it increased its market share to 14.2 percent in 2009, according to Gartner.

There was also no change among the next four companies in terms of rankings. Samsung was in second place, followed by Toshiba, Texas Instruments and STMicroelectronics.

Qualcomm and Hynix Semiconductor were next in the rankings, as each company jumped two places. Renesas Technology was next, but the company fell one slot. Advanced Micro Devices was next and jumped two places, while Infineon was tenth and fell two places.

NEC Electronics went from No. 10 in 2008 to No. 11 in 2009, according to Gartner. As previously reported, Renesas and NEC Electronics are set to merge in 2010.

Only three of the top 10 semiconductor vendors saw revenue growth in 2009. Two were memory manufacturers, Samsung and Hynix. Qualcomm also grew.

''Four of the seven companies in the top 10 showing revenue declines experienced double-digit declines. Infineon's precipitous 46.5 percent drop was a consequence of the failure of its memory business unit, Qimonda, and the sale of its wireline communications business. If one subtracts wireline component revenue from Infineon's 2008 revenue to facilitate a 'like for like' comparison in 2009, Infineon's revenue drop is only 27.2 percent,'' according to Gartner.

Outside of the top 10, but within the top 25, Taiwan's MediaTek grew 21.4 percent, due its strong position among off-brand Chinese cell phone makers. It was the only company within the top 25 to show double-digit growth.

''MediaTek's (recent) third-quarter results showed continued impressive performance in terms of revenue, margin and earnings that are mainly derived from high-volume sales of whitebox handsets in emerging markets, more diverse product offerings and more high-endsegment products shipped,'' said Jamie Wang, an analyst with Gartner, in a recent report.

''In this recent announcement, MediaTek reconfirmed that it will ship more than 300 million units of handset chipsets in 2009 and that market penetration of high-end products, such as smartphones, Blu-ray/DVDs and DTVs, will continue to grow in 2010,'' Wang said.

''However, competition is coming from Spreadtrum and MStar as a result of their price aggressiveness in the handset chipset and DTV markets, respectively. In turn, this may increasingly erode MediaTek's ASP, profitability and market share,'' Wang said.

MediaTek's 3Q09 revenue was up 22.1 percent sequentially, and up 22.5 percent compared with 3Q08. ''Revenue derived from handset chipsets accounted for about 70-to-75 percent of the company's total, while that derived from chipsets of optical disk drives (ODDs), digital TVs (DTVs), Blu-ray/DVD players and others accounted for about 25-to-30 percent,'' according to Gartner.

''In 4Q09, it could post a decline between 13-to-19 percent, because this is a seasonally slow quarter. But re-export sales from China will remain strong, to account for 45 percent in 4Q09 and more than 50 percent in 2010,'' according to Gartner.

Rankings table

By: DocMemory
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