Intel is Supposed to Bounce Back in Semiconductor Industry

Published:2011/12/1 23:26:00 Author:Phyllis From:SeekIC

Intel is reportedly on the verge of reversing a trend as Santa Clara’s dominant position in the global semiconductor market whittled away by aggressive competition from Samsung.

Intel is set to sell 49.7 billion dollar worth of semiconductors in 2011, enjoy a 23% increase from $40.4 billion in 2010. This will make Intel outgrow the overall semiconductor market and boost its share of the market up from 13.2% to 15.9 percent.

Intel’s achievement is the more remarkable given that it has been losing market share to Samsung over several years and only Qualcomm and On Semiconductor will show higher percentage growth in 2011. This reveals that acquisitions were a key driver of progress in the 2011 ranking. Intel put on weight thanks to the acquisition of Infineon’s wireless business unit, Qualcomm acquired Atheros Communications and On Semiconductor took over Sanyo Semiconductor from Panasonic.

In a challenging year for the semiconductor market, Intel has achieved success on all fronts and expanded its core microprocessor and memory businesses, while also capitalized on a major acquisition. This allowed the company to outgrow the market and expand its lead over its closest competitors, defying the impact of weak economic conditions and catastrophic natural disasters in Japan and Thailand.

Intel currently generates the majority of its semiconductor revenue by selling microprocessors (MPU) and NAND flash memory, two of the hottest segments of the chip industry in 2011.

Samsung is also benefiting from NAND flash sales, in which it is the world’s leading supplier as well as progress in applications processors, CMOS image sensors and display driver ICs, but this is offset by its exposure to the DRAM market. IHS expects the DRAM market to decline by 27 percent in 2011.

In general, memory, and with the exception of NAND flash, was a poor market to be in during 2011. Global revenue for EEPROM, SRAM and NOR flash memory all will decline by double-digit percentages this year. Consequently, some of the biggest decreases will be suffered by memory suppliers, such as Hynix Semiconductor Inc., Micron Technology Inc. and Elpida Memory Inc. whose revenue will fall by 14.2 percent, 17.3 percent and 40.2 percent, respectively.

Consequently, some of the biggest decreases will be suffered by memory suppliers, such as No. 8 Hynix Semiconductor Inc. of Korea, No. 9 Micron Technology Inc. of the United States and No. 15 Elpida Memory Inc. of Japan, whose revenue will fall by 14.2%, 17.3% and 40.2%, respectively.

It is predicted that the extremely weak economic conditions will keep 2012 chip market growth at a low single-digit percentage and any rebound in revenue growth will be delayed until 2013.

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