SK Hynix moves into top 5, MediaTek climbs into top 10, and Sharp and UMC move into the top 20 ranking.
The top-20 worldwide semiconductor (IC and O S D—optoelectronic, sensor, and discrete) sales ranking for 1Q15 is shown in the Figure .
It includes 7 suppliers headquartered in the U.S., 4 in Japan, 3 in Taiwan, three in Europe, 2 in South Korea, and 1 in Singapore.
The top-20 ranking includes three pure-play foundries (TSMC, GlobalFoundries, and UMC) and four fabless companies.
It is interesting to note that the top four semiconductor suppliers all have different business models. Intel is essentially a pure-play IDM, Samsung a vertically integrated IC supplier, TSMC a pure-play foundry, and Qualcomm a fabless company.
In total, the top 20 semiconductor companies’ sales increased by 9% in 1Q15/1Q14 (6% excluding the foundries), 3 points greater than the total worldwide semiconductor industry growth rate. Although, there were 6 companies that displayed >20% 1Q15/1Q14 growth. 9 companies had sales of at least $2.0 billion in 1Q15. As shown, it took just over $1.1 billion in quarterly sales just to make it into the 1Q15 top-20 semiconductor supplier ranking.
There were 2 new entrants into the top 20 ranking in 1Q15—Japan-based Sharp and Taiwan-based pure-play foundry UMC, which replaced AMD and Nvidia.
AMD had a particularly rough 1Q15 and saw its sales drop 26% year-over-year.
SK Hynix continued its ascent up the semiconductor company rankings that started a few years ago and moved into 5th place in 1Q15, displacing Micron.
MediaTek’s growth has slowed somewhat from its torrid pace over the past few years, the company posted a year-over-year sales increase of 12% to move into the top 10.
Although Sharp as a whole is having a difficult time, its semiconductor group, which represents only about 14% of the company’s corporate sales, posted a whopping 62% growth rate (an 88% increase in yen), the best 1Q15 sales increase of any top-20 semiconductor supplier. This sales surge was almost entirely due to the company’s success in the CMOS image sensor market.
As would be expected, given the possible acquisitions and mergers that could occur this year (e.g., NXP/Freescale, GlobalFoundries/IBM’s IC group, etc.), as well as any new ones that may develop, the top 20 semiconductor ranking is likely to undergo a tremendous amount of upheaval over the next couple of years as the semiconductor industry continues along its path to maturity.