Telecom Lead Asia: Samsung has overtaken Apple as the top semiconductor customer in 2012.
Gartner says based on analysis of the design total available market (TAM), Samsung and Apple together consumed $45.3 billion of semiconductors in 2012, up $7.9 billion from 2011, to represent 15 percent of total semiconductor demand, while the total semiconductor market decreased by 3 percent.
Masatsune Yamaji, principal research analyst at Gartner, said: “In addition to a weak macroeconomic situation, a dramatic change in consumer demand contributed to a reduction in semiconductor demand in 2012.”
The PC market represented the largest sector for chip demand, but desktop and mobile PCs did not sell well, as consumers’ interest shifted to new mobile computing devices like smartphones and media tablets. This shift caused a decrease in semiconductor demand in 2012, as the semiconductor content of a smartphone or a media tablet is far less than that of a PC.
The top 10 companies demanded $106.4 billion of semiconductors in 2012, to account for 36 percent of total semiconductor vendors’ worldwide revenue of $297.6 billion.
Of the top 10 companies, Nokia’s semiconductor demand contracted most.
Table 1
Top 10 Semiconductor Design TAM by Company, Worldwide 2012, Preliminary (Billions of Dollars)
| Rank
2011 |
Rank
2012 |
Company | 2011 | 2012 | 2011-2012 Growth (%) | Share (%) |
| 2 | 1 | Samsung Electronics | 18.6 | 23.9 | 28.9 | 8.0 |
| 1 | 2 | Apple | 18.8 | 21.4 | 13.6 | 7.2 |
| 3 | 3 | HP | 16.0 | 14.0 | -12.7 | 4.7 |
| 4 | 4 | Dell | 9.9 | 8.6 | -13.4 | 2.9 |
| 8 | 5 | Sony | 7.7 | 7.9 | 1.9 | 2.7 |
| 7 | 6 | Lenovo | 7.8 | 7.8 | 0.3 | 2.6 |
| 6 | 7 | Toshiba | 7.8 | 6.5 | -17.1 | 2.2 |
| 9 | 8 | LG Electronics | 6.5 | 6.0 | -6.7 | 2.0 |
| 11 | 9 | Cisco | 5.4 | 5.4 | -0.8 | 1.8 |
| 5 | 10 | Nokia | 8.6 | 5.0 | -42.6 | 1.7 |
| Others | 199.7 | 191.1 | -4.3 | 64.2 | ||
| Total | 306.8 | 297.6 | -3.0 | 100.0 |
TAM = total available market
Source: Gartner (January 2013)
