Semiconductor revenue fell 1.9 percent to $333.7 billion in 2015, said IT research firm Gartner.
The top 25 semiconductor vendors grew their revenue by 0.2 percent to account for 73.2 percent of total market revenue in 2015 against 71.7 percent in 2014.
Semiconductor revenues of key device categories grew in 2014.
“2015 saw mixed performance with optoelectronics, non-optical sensors, analog and ASIC all reporting revenue growth while the rest of the market saw declines,” said Sergis Mushell, research director at Gartner.
ASIC segment rose 2.4 percent due to demand from Apple. Semiconductor revenues in analog market increased 1.9 percent. Gartner said semiconductor revenue in non-optical sensors grew 1.6 percent. Semiconductor revenue in memory industry fell 0.6 percent. DRAM posted negative growth, while NAND flash recorded growth last year.
Semiconductor revenue of Intel fell 1.2 percent, due to falls in PC shipments. Intel has 15.5 percent of semiconductor market share.
Samsung’s memory business helped in growth of 11.8 percent in 2015, and the company maintained the No. 2 spot with 11.6 percent market share.
Qualcomm revenue is expected to drop 17.4 percent. Broadcom revenue is anticipated to dip 0.1 percent.
The NAND market revenue grew 4.1 percent in 2015. The NAND pricing environment rippled through most of the NAND solutions, particularly solid-state drives (SSDs), which continue to encroach on hard-disk drives (HDDs).
After 32.0 percent revenue growth in 2014, the DRAM market hit a downturn in 2015. An oversupply in the commodity portion of the market caused by weak PC demand led to severe declines in average selling prices (ASPs), and revenue contracted by 2.4 percent.
Baburajan K
editor@telecomlead.com