Worldwide chip revenue surges 21.6 percent, Dataquest says
Mar 28, 2000 --- Led by 41 percent year-over-year growth in the memory segment, 1999 worldwide semiconductor industry revenues surged 21.6 percent to $168.6 billion versus $138.7 billion in 1998, according to the final tally from Dataquest Inc., a market research unit of Gartner Group Inc.
"The memory market made a big comeback fueled by the revival in DRAM, which grew 46 percent in 1999, and the shortage of flash capacity," said Joe D'Elia, director of Dataquest's European Semiconductor Research, in a statement.
The growth spurt pushed semiconductor revenue beyond the previous record high of $151.3 billion achieved in 1995. However, 1999's mergers and divestments made for unusual growth patterns among major chipmakers. Some vendors posted growth figures that appeared unusual. For instance, Dataquest points out that Motorola's divestiture of ON Semiconductor contributed to a revenue decline of 9.8 percent. Conversely, Hyundai's merger with LG Semicon caused revenue to grow 168.5 percent.
The top ten chipmakers continue to contribute more than half the total sales. However, those chipmakers outside the top ten, which accounted for 49.5 percent of total revenue, grew at a slightly faster rate of 24.1 percent.
Intel maintained its comfortable lead and ranking as the top chipmaker, garnering a 15.9 percent share of the market with sales of $26.8 billion, up 17.7 percent from a year ago. NEC followed a distant second with $9.21 billion in revenue, up 15.9 percent and equal to a 5.5 percent share of the total market. Toshiba's revenues grew 28.8 percent to $7.61 billion, pushing the Japanese electronics firm up one notch to third place with a 4.5 percent share. Samsung surged up two spots to No. 4 with 50.2 percent growth, sending revenue up $7.125 billion, 4.2 percent of the total market. Texas Instruments remained in the fifth slot, close behind Samsung, with revenue of $7.12 billion, up 22.3 percent.
In the second set of five, Motorola held a 3.8 percent share of the market with $6.39 billion in sales. Hitachi grabbed the seventh slot with $5.55 billion in sales, worth 3.3 percent in market share. Buoyed by 33 percent year-over-year growth, Infineon jumped two spots to eighth with $5.22 billion in sales, good for 3.1 percent of the market. STMicroelectronics held the ninth spot with $5.077 billion in sales, worth a 3 percent share. Despite being in a virtual deadlock with STMicro, Philips dropped two slots to tenth with sales of $5.074 billion, equal to a 3 percent share of the market.
While the Americas region led the industry, accounting for 32.8 percent of semiconductor revenue in 1999, Asia/Pacific, the No. 2 region with 25 percent of the market, posted the strongest increase, 32.7 percent in 1999. In overall share, the Americas and Asia/Pacific were followed by Japan with 22.4 percent, and Europe with 19.8 percent.
Japan grew 24.7 percent, followed by the Americas with 18.3 percent, and Europe with 12.6 percent.
eb-mag.com
Top ten was news to me.
Jack |
