Intel remained the industry leader in a global semiconductor market that grew 3.7 percent in 2011 and is projected to grow between 6 and 7 percent this year, IDC reported Monday.
Worldwide semiconductor revenues reached $301 billion last year despite lingering economic uncertainty, the hard drive shortage resulting from floods in Thailand, Japan's devastating tsunami and earthquake, and a slowdown in China in the second half of 2011, according to the research firm, which published its Worldwide Semiconductor Applications Forecaster (SAF) report this week.
Driving growth in the industry was the rise of consumer mobile devices like smartphones, tablets, and ereaders, as well as robust consumption of semiconductor products for use in servers, laptops, automotive infotainment systems, and wireless and wired communication infrastructure.
Mergers and acquisitions like the Qualcomm-Atheros, Broadcom-NetLogic, and Texas Instruments-National Semiconductor deals played a prominent role in the industry last year, IDC analyst Mali Venkatesan said. The research firm expects more such deals in 2012, while also forecasting that manufacturing cycles will ramp up in the final six months of this year.
"[T]he current semiconductor cycle, which started mid-2011, will bottom out in the second quarter of 2012 and fab utilization rates will pick up and accelerate in the second half of this year," Venkatesan said. "Overall, IDC expects 2012 semiconductor revenue growth to be in the 6 to 7 percent range."
IDC, which tracks more than 100 semiconductor companies, said more than 40 firms enjoyed year-over-year revenue growth greater than 5 percent in 2011, while roughly the same amount had sales drop by that percentage.
Leading the charge once again was Intel, which had revenues from semiconductor production totaling $51.8 billion last year while also added 3 percent to its overall industry market share. Samsung was second with $29 billion in semiconductor sales, followed by Texas Instruments, Toshiba, Renesas Electronics, Qualcomm, Hynix, STMicro, Micron, and Broadcom, the research firm said.
Collectively, the top 10 semiconductor companies captured 53 percent of global semiconductor revenues in 2011, up 3 percent from 2010, while the largest 25 firms hauled in 72 percent of available revenues.
IDC also singled out Apple's 140 percent year-over-year semiconductor revenue growth as among the most impressive performances of 2011. Other companies experiencing strong growth were Intel, Qualcomm, ON Semiconductor, Renesas, Spredtrum Communications, CoreLogic, Microsemi, Sequans, Icera, MegaChips, Nichia Chemical, Osram, RobertBosch, Skyworks, and Cavium, the research firm said.
Breaking out semiconductor device segments, IDC said microprocessor and NAND sales increased year-over-year in 2011 while DRAM revenue slipped by more than 25 percent.
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