|
AMD enters iSuppli’s top ten semiconductor company rankings |
|
|
|
Mar 15, 2007 at 12:00 AM |
 Increased market share in the microprocessor market coupled with the acquisition of ATI saw AMD propelled into the top ten semiconductor company rankings for 2006, according to iSuppli Corp. The rankings by revenue show that AMD is now the eighth largest chip maker, up from fifteenth position in 2005. This is the first time in AMD's history that it has become a top ten semiconductor company.
"For Intel's smaller U.S. rival, AMD, 2006 was the best of times as it achieved a whopping 91.6 percent increase in revenue for the year, partly due to a major acquisition, but also because of strong gains in microprocessor market share," said Dale Ford, vice president, market intelligence, for iSuppli.
"For U.S. microprocessor giant Intel, 2006 was the worst of times, as its global semiconductor revenue dropped by 11.1 percent from 2005," noted Ford. "The revenue decline, which was due to Intel's bleak performance in its core PC microprocessor and flash-memory businesses, erased nearly all of the company's sales gains from its strong year in 2005. Intel's 2006 revenue of $31.5 billion was less than half a percentage point higher than its sales in 2004."
According to iSuppli, Intel's revenue decline resulted in its overall semiconductor market share falling to 12.1 percent, its lowest level since before 2000. On the other hand, iSuppli noted that AMD's PC microprocessor revenue rose by 35.5 percent in 2006 and a market share gain in that product segment of 16.1 percent, up 5 percentage points from 11.1 percent in 2005.
Another new entrant in the top ten rankings was Hynix Semiconductor, which jumped to seventh-place position in 2006, up from eleventh in 2005 as its revenue surged 41.5 percent. According to iSuppli, memory ICs were the key segment driving the growth of the overall semiconductor industry in 2006, with revenue in this area rising by 22.7 percent. A stronger-than-anticipated revenue increase in the fourth quarter boosted annual growth for DRAM to 35.2 percent in 2006.
Also noted was the rise of Elpida Memory, which saw revenues nearly double in 2006, rising by 98.6 percent from 2005. This caused the company to rise to nineteenth position in 2006, up from twenty-eighth in 2005.
With two companies entering the top-ten for the first time, the shift in rankings was more pronounced than in recent years. Both Infineon and NEC dropped out of the top-ten. Infineon dropped out due to the spin-off of Qimonda, while NEC suffered from revenue declines.
Indeed it would seem that other Japanese semiconductor companies performed poorly in 2006. Renesas Technology Corp., Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. and Rohm Corp. all saw revenues fall with declines of 2.6 percent, 2.6 percent and 0.9 percent respectively.
According to iSuppli, all of the top-five semiconductor suppliers, except Intel, beat the average annual semiconductor market growth rate in 2006 with at least an 11 percent expansion.
|
|
News 
