Worldwide semiconductor revenue increased 26.3 percent to $595 billion in 2021 — mainly due to demand in 5G smartphones, according to final results by Gartner.
“The events behind the chip shortage continue to impact original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), but the 5G smartphone ramp up and a combination of demand and logistics / raw material price increases drove semiconductor average selling prices (ASPs) higher,” Andrew Norwood, research vice president at Gartner, said in the report on semiconductor industry.
Korea-based Samsung Electronics regained the top spot from Intel for the first time since 2018, though by less than a percentage point, with revenue increasing 28 percent in 2021.
US-based Intel’s revenue declined 0.3 percent, garnering 12.2 percent market share compared to 12.3 percent market share for Samsung.
AMD and Mediatek experienced the strongest growth in 2021 at 68.6 percent and 60.2 percent growth, respectively.
The most significant shift among the semiconductor vendor ranking in 2021 was HiSilicon dropping out of the top 25.
HiSilicon’s revenue declined 81 percent, from $8.2 billion in 2020 to $1.5 billion in 2021. This was a result of the U.S. sanctions against the company and its parent company Huawei.
This also impacted China’s share of the semiconductor market as it declined from 6.7 percent share in 2020 to 6.5 percent in 2021.
South Korea had the largest increase in market share in 2021 as strong growth in the memory market propelled South Korea to garner 19.3 percent of the global semiconductor market.
