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Industry market monitor IHS iSuppli has confirmed that American multinational chipmaker Intel has extended its lead in the semiconductor industry after a successful 2011. The announcement follows the company’s posting of its financial figures earlier this year; Intel’s income represents 15.6% of the total semiconductor industry revenue. Second placed Samsung Electronics represents 9.2% of the industry after seeing only marginal growth.

Samsung has been gaining on Intel’s market share in recent years following the release of its hugely successful Galaxy SII handset in 2011 and securing a contract to supply some of the chips for Apple’s iPhone. While Intel’s revival has come as somewhat of a surprise to industry watchers, it is believed that the continued stagnation of the DRAM market – to which Samsung is the largest memory supplier – is an important contributor to Samsung’s revenue growth problems. DRAM manufacturers Hynix and Micron both reported double-digit revenue drops while the now bankrupt Elpida suffered the largest decline on the IHS iSuppli list, a revenue drop of 39.7%.

Global foundry Qualcomm enjoyed one of the most notable increases in income, reporting a 41.6% rise in revenue making it the 6th largest semiconductor manufacturer. Nvidia and Broadcom reported revenue increases of 12.9% and 7.2% respectively after entering the smartphone chip business.

Intel will hope that the release of two new Medfield Atom chips last month will help to strengthen its place at the top of the semiconductor industry.