Market research firm iSuppli Corp. has issued preliminary global semiconductor market-share estimates for 2007, noting that Intel Corp.’s revenues are expected to rise by 7.7 percent in 2007 to reach $33.97 billion in 2007, up from $31.5 billion in 2006. This news means that Intel exceeded the growth rate for the industry as a whole, as iSuppli predicts this will be a growth rate of 4.1 percent in 2007. 

Arch rival AMD is expected to see revenues decline by 22.7 percent for the year, falling from $7.5 billion in 2006 to only $5.8 billion in 2007, according to iSuppli. This will see AMD drop to 11th place in iSuppli’s rankings, down from eighth place in 2006. Intel’s market share rose to 12.5 percent in 2007, up from 12.1 percent in 2006.

“Throughout most of the year, Intel successfully defended much of the market share that it won from AMD in the first quarter in the PC microprocessor segment due to the success of its lines of dual- and quad-core chips,” said Dale Ford, Vice President of market intelligence for iSuppli. “This represents a major reversal of fortune compared to 2006, when AMD had the advantage with its popular dual-core microprocessors, allowing it to gain share from Intel.”

Interestingly, iSuppli noted that the biggest revenue rise came from Sony at 56.8 percent compared to the semiconductor consumer-electronics players’ average growth of only 8.9 percent. This rise is attributable to the launch of the PS3 late last year.

Another Japanese-based chip manufacturer, Toshiba, also a supplier of chips for the PS3, will see revenue growth of 24.1 percent, the second-largest percentage increase among the Top-20 chip makers after Sony, iSuppli said.
Infineon Technologies is set to achieve a 14.6 percent increase in semiconductor revenue due to a rise in wireless communications semiconductor sales. However, Texas Instruments is expected to suffer a 3.4 percent decline in global semiconductor revenue in 2007.

Another victim is Freescale Semiconductor, set for a 10.7 percent decline in chip sales for 2007 due to market share declines at its largest customer, Motorola.

“With global wireless semiconductor revenue expected to rise by 4.3 percent in 2007, the divergent performances of these companies is being driven by a specific event: Nokia’s initiative to diversify its supply base,” Ford noted. “Nokia, the world’s largest seller of mobile phones, historically has used Texas Instruments as its near-exclusive supplier of wireless baseband suppliers. However, the company has engaged in a strategic initiative to add other baseband suppliers to reduce its dependency on Texas Instruments. This has benefited other companies such as Infineon, but has cut into Texas Instruments’ sales.”