In 2024, the global semiconductor industry experienced a substantial upswing, with total revenue reaching $655.9 billion — marking a 21 percent increase from the previous year’s $542.1 billion, according to Gartner report.
This growth was largely driven by surging demand for AI infrastructure, alongside a dramatic 73.4 percent rise in memory revenue.
NVIDIA led the charge, generating $76.7 billion in revenue — an impressive 120.1 percent increase from its 2023 figure of $34.4 billion. This propelled the company to the No. 1 position, up from third place last year, marking a significant leap fueled by booming demand for its GPUs in AI data centers. NVIDIA’s GPUs were widely adopted for training and inference tasks, solidifying the company’s dominance in the AI-driven computing industry.
Samsung Electronics secured the second spot with $65.7 billion in revenue, showing a robust 60.8 percent growth from its 2023 total of $40.9 billion. The rebound in memory prices, particularly DRAM and flash, played a crucial role in this performance.
Intel, previously ranked second, dropped to third with revenue of $49.8 billion, representing a modest 0.8 percent increase from $49.4 billion in 2023. This stagnation highlighted the company’s struggle to keep pace with competitors in high-growth areas like AI processing. Intel faced intensifying competition across its core product lines, which limited its ability to capitalize on the booming demand for AI processing solutions.
SK Hynix followed closely at fourth place, posting $44.2 billion in revenue — a 91.5 percent surge from the previous year’s $23.1 billion, largely due to gains in memory products.
Qualcomm maintained its fifth position, though its revenue growth was limited to 2.8 percent, moving from $27.1 billion to $27.9 billion, suggesting relatively stable but subdued momentum.
Broadcom claimed sixth place with $27.8 billion in revenue, up 8.5 percent from $25.6 billion, reflecting consistent performance in networking and custom silicon markets.
Micron Technology made a significant jump from 12th to seventh place, driven by a 71 percent increase in revenue, rising from $16.2 billion to $27.6 billion, again benefiting from the favorable memory market.
AMD secured the eighth spot with $24.1 billion, up 7.3 percent from $22.5 billion, bolstered by its expanding presence in data center and AI markets.
Apple came in ninth with $20.5 billion, an 18.5 percent increase from $17.3 billion in 2023.
MediaTek rounded out the top ten, growing its revenue by 15.8 percent to reach $15.9 billion from $13.8 billion.
Baburajan Kizhakedath
