The rankings for the top 20 semiconductor sales for Q1 2015 have been released. Intel and Samsung are in 1st and 2nd
place respectively and not surprisingly! The other companies within the top 20 are also unsurprising with other big names such as Qualcomm, TI and Avago all entering the top 20.
What is interesting however is that the top 4 all have completely
different business models:
- Intel – a pureplay IDM
- Samsung – Vertically integrated IC supplier
- TSMS – a pureplay Foundry
- Qualcomm – A fabless company
All of the top 20 have made a huge amount of money in
the first quarter, especially TSMC with their sales from 1Q14 to 1Q15
increasing a gigantic 44%! Intel's sales have remained flat but they remain on top and ahead of Samsung by $2,296M.
The majority of the companies are US
based with 7 of them hailing from North America. Of the rest 4 are in
Japan, 3 in Taiwan, 3 in Europe, 2 in South Korea and 1 in Singapore. There is quite broad mixture of locations showing that not one
country is dominating completely.
With all the mergers and acquisitions in
the pipeline such as NXP & Freescale and Microchip & Micrel, and
no doubt there will be many other M&As occurring which we have no
clue about yet, this ranking is likely to change considerably in the
future.
