<!– @page { margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } –>
Global semiconductor market has taken a blow over the last two years with revenue decreasing just over 10% last year compared to 2008, according to research firm Gartner.
Total worldwide semiconductor revenue reached $228.4bn in 2009, down $26.8bn from 2008. However, Gartner said that the industry performed much better than expected in the second half, setting the stage for strong 2010 growth against weak comparables.
According to Gartner, Intel gained the top spot for the 18th consecutive year, with revenues of $33.2bn, accounting for a market share of 14.6%. Samsung stood second with its revenue increasing 1.7% to $17.68bn, representing a market share of 7.7%. These were followed by Toshiba, Texas Instruments, STMicroelectronics and Qualcomm with 4.2%, 4%, 3.7% and 2.8% revenues, respectively.
Hynix Semiconductor revenue increased by 0.4% to $6.03bn from $6.01bn in 2008, while Infineon had the largest decline, with its overall revenue down 43.1%, due to the bankruptcy of its Qimonda memory business and the divestiture of its wireline communications unit.
Qualcomm stood in sixth position with revenues of $6.4bn, down 1% compared to $6.47bn in 2008. Renesas Technology took the eight place with revenues $5.67bn. AMD managed to get into the top 10, gaining ninth position from 11 position in 2008. Its revenues were down by 2.7% to $5.15bn in 2009.
Peter Middleton, principal research analyst at Gartner, said: After an unprecedented decline in the fourth quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of 2009, sequential quarterly revenue growth for the industry overall was very strong in the last three quarters of 2009. As a result, 2009 performance overall was much milder than initially feared in the aftermath of the financial crisis.
