Broadcom and Qualcomm Jump 2 Places in Semiconductor Rankings

IC Insights has released its ranking of the top 25 worldwide semiconductor (ICs and OSDs - optoelectronics, sensors, and discretes) sales leaders for 2006. For the top 25 suppliers, it was clearly a year of the haves versus the have-nots. Although six of the twenty-five suppliers posted revenue spikes of greater than 35% in 2006, about one-third of the companies (eight) registered below-average sales growth (i.e., less than 9%) last year.

The top 25 listing also includes two pure-play foundries (TSMC and UMC) and three fabless companies (Qualcomm, Broadcom, and Nvidia). Essentially all of the top 25 semiconductor companies had semiconductor sales of at least $3 billion in 2006, about the same dollar amount needed to construct a high-volume 300mm wafer fabrication facility.

The strength in the DRAM market, which increased 32% in 2006, spurred a surge in sales at Hynix, Qimonda, and Elpida. Meanwhile, Sony received a big boost in its 2006 semiconductor sales due to large gains in internal transfer revenue from its new Playstation 3 game console ramp-up.

Fabless supplier Broadcom continues to ride the communications wave with a strong presence in the networking, broadband, and mobile and wireless product segments. While Broadcom's 37% 2006 growth rate is impressive, even more impressive is the company's 2001-2006 average annual growth rate of 31%.

With nine suppliers headquartered in the U.S., eight in Japan, four in Europe, two in Taiwan, and two in South Korea, the list of major semiconductor suppliers contains a broad representation of geographic regions.

NXP (formerly Philips Semiconductor), which ranked 11th in the full-year 2005 listing, moved into the 10th position last year. Meanwhile, NEC fell from being ranked 10th in 2005 to 12th in 2006. It should be noted that six of the eight top-25 suppliers that lost positions in the 2006 ranking were Japanese companies (the other two companies that slipped in the rankings were Micron and Infineon).

Infineon and its spin-off Qimonda, each had over $5 billion in sales in 2006. Combined, the companies' sales would have been $10.5 billion, which would have been large enough for it to be ranked as the fourth largest semiconductor supplier in the world in 2006. In fact, with Infineon currently holding about 85% of the stock in Qimonda, there are some that believe the two companies' sales figures should still be combined.

"

Posted to the site on 16th March 2007