Samsung pips Intel to lead global chip market in 2021, says report

Amid the global semiconductor shortage, Samsung took the first position from Intel in 2021 owing to its solid growth momentum in both logic IC and memory chip segments, according to a new report.

The South Korean giant took the lead with a strong DRAM and NAND flash market performance at the expense of Intel's relatively flattish results.

Major smartphone SoC (system on chip) and GPU vendors also enjoyed strong growth in the year with over 50 per cent (on-year) revenue increase, according to Counterpoint Research.

"In addition, we saw 27 per cent YoY revenue growth among the top 15 vendors, outperforming global semiconductor revenue growth and implying another year of centralised semiconductor industry, said William Li, research analyst.

Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger has suggested that the chip shortage wouldn't end until at least 2023.

Semiconductor industry also went through significant structural changes in 2021 after entity lists were announced by both China and the US.

According to Li, the overall 2021 semiconductor revenue rankings also varied from the previous year.

"Memory vendors continued to lead the industry with SK Hynix and Micron taking the third and fourth positions, followed by IC design vendors, including Qualcomm and NVIDIA," he informed.

The year saw 19 per cent YoY revenue growth with the largest contribution coming from the memory and IC design sectors.

"In general, we believe supply constraints will likely persist before H2 2022, though our checks suggest some amount of component shortage easing," said Li.

High performance computing, metaverse (AR/VR/XR), 5G and automotive remain key semi content growth drivers for the industry.

--IANS

na/sks/ksk/