TSMC has biggest growth rate in semiconductor sales

Research firm IC Insights published a new report about the semiconductor market in the first half of 2008. Intel is the biggest semiconductor firm in the world with sales of almost 17.5 billion in the first half of this year, followed by Samsung at $11.19 billion and TI at $6.36 billion. Toshiba is the fourth largest semiconductor firm with sales of $5.84 billion and foundry TSMC climbed from the sixth to the fifth spot with sales of $5.66 billion. AMD slid from 11 to 15 with sales of $2.85 billion and NVIDIA still ranks 19 with a revenue of $2.14 billion.

With many of the major DRAM and flash suppliers (e.g., Qimonda, Elpida, Spansion, Powerchip, Nanya, etc.) 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 (Figure 2) from the company that showed the fastest growth (TSMC at +35%) to the company that registered the steepest decline (H ynix at -23%).

More than half of the top 20 semiconductor firms recorded a double-digit growth in the first half of 2008, with TSMC, Qualcomm, Panasonic, NVIDIA and Samsung being the biggest growers. Both Intel and AMD had to settle for a growth of 9% while NVIDIA managed to increase its sales by 23%. TI was the only one who didn't see its business grow, besides Hynix which is the only top 20 semiconductor firm who saw its sales shrink.