According to analytical company IC Insights, in the second quarter of 2021, Samsung became the world’s largest supplier of semiconductor products, increasing the corresponding indicators by 10% and surpassing the former leader in this category, Intel.
The Korean manufacturer was helped to break out of the leaders not only by an impressive 10% jump in just one quarter, but also by the stagnant performance of Intel, which had to go down to second position. As for the rest, the disposition in the top five remained unchanged. The third-place belongs to TSMC, the fourth to SK hynix, and the fifth to Micron. It is noteworthy that SK hynix and Micron have also significant growth in the second quarter, but this was not enough to change their places in the ranking.
The key to Samsung’s victory was a 19% increase in sales due to the growing demand for RAM and flash memory; this segment has bailed out the Korean manufacturer in the past. Along with the demand, prices for memory modules also went up, which had a positive effect on Samsung‘s financial results. According to analysts’ forecasts, demand for memory modules in the third quarter may show additional growth of 10%; and this will again increase the revenue of the new leader.
Gizchina News of the week
Samsung overtook Intel to become the world’s largest semiconductor supplier
The world’s ten largest suppliers of semiconductor products in the second quarter showed combined revenues at around $ 95.5 billion; and the entire semiconductor industry showed 8% growth over this period. It is worth noting that the growth of Intel, TSMC, Qualcomm and Broadcom was below the industry average.
According to analysts’ forecasts, in the third quarter, Intel’s sales may generally decline by 3%; therefore, on the one hand, we do not know how long the former leader will hold out in second place. On the other hand, just the day before, the company announced a new processor architecture; and IC Insights’ forecasts may simply not be justified if the market responds positively to new items.
Several other brands outside the top five of the world leaders also showed interesting dynamics. NVIDIA’s sales for the quarter are up 14%, and the company is doing well amid insane demand from data centers, gamers and, of course, cryptocurrency miners. Growth of 17% was demonstrated by MediaTek, the key to its success was 5G smartphones and consumer multimedia products. The eleventh place in the world standings was taken by AMD; which showed an impressive 12% growth in the second quarter. IC Insights analysts also predicted that by the end of 2021, the global semiconductor market will grow by 23%.
