iSuppli: 2009 could have been much worse
This year's shining stars will be Samsung and memory, especially NAND, according to the research house.
By Suzanne Deffree, Managing Editor, News -- Electronic News, 11/24/2009
2009 will be remembered as one of the worst years in recent history, but as iSuppli Corp reminded this week, even the worst years have bright spots.
The research house reported that 27 of the 135 semiconductor suppliers it tracks will show revenue growth this year, that certain industry segments will show surprising good growth this year, and that total industry revenue is expected to fall far less than previous expectations called for.
“The year 2009 will be remembered as one of the most dismal years in the history of the global semiconductor business, with a plunge of more than $32 billion in revenue compared to 2008,” said Dale Ford, senior VP at iSuppli, in a statement. “However, iSuppli’s preliminary estimate of a 12.4% decline is far better than expectations from early 2009 of a more than 20% plunge.
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ISuppli attributed the better-than-anticipated 2009 numbers to a "surprisingly strong performance" in the memory market, as well as in sales of chips for consumer electronics and wireless products.
ISuppli further noted that among the Top-10 suppliers, only number two Samsung Electronics is expected to show revenue growth this year. While the South Korea-based company is set to expand its revenue by only 1.3%, this represents "standout performance" during such a poor year, iSuppli said.
“Samsung is benefiting from its dominance in the memory market, whose performance was dramatically better than the semiconductor industry as a whole,” Ford said. “The company is the number one supplier of both DRAM and NAND flash, the two largest segments of the memory market. Samsung managed to outperform the memory market partly due to its early leadership in new, higher-margin memory products, such DDR3 SDRAM.”
Indeed, the memory market will fare the best of all major semiconductor segments in 2009 with only a projected 6.7% decline, according to iSuppli. The company reported that NAND flash memory is expected to actually achieve double-digit growth with a projected 16.4% rise in revenue.
As to suppliers, iSuppli also made special note of Qualcomm, which in 2009 is projected to post the next-best performance among the Top-10 suppliers with its revenue expected to remain flat compared to 2008 thanks to steady revenue from the wireless segment and its rising share of the market for baseband chips for cell phones, and AMD, which managed to limit its 2009 revenue decline to 7.6% due to strong performance in the microprocessor market, also expected to decline by only 7.6% in 2009.
On the flip side, iSuppli reported that Sony suffered the worst performance among the Top-10 suppliers, with its revenue set to decline by 32.8% for the year.
Specific to regional and application trends, iSuppli noted that the wireless communications market for semiconductors is the most resilient segment in 2009 with an expected decline of only 8.2%. The data processing segment, with a projected decline of 9.8%, is expected to be the second-best segment.
The hardest-hit areas in 2009 will be the automotive electronics industry, with a drop of 26.1%, followed by industrial electronics and consumer electronics at negative 15.2% and 15.1% respectively, according to iSuppli's estimates.
The hardest-hit market in 2009 will be analog ICs, iSuppli said, with an expected drop of 18.7%. Next-hardest hit will be sensors and actuators with a 16.3% decline and discrete semiconductor components with a 15.9% decline.
Meanwhile, the Asia/Pacific region is set to post the strongest performance both as a supplier, as well as a consumer of semiconductors. Semiconductor companies with headquarters in Asia are expected to see their combined revenue grow by 0.3%, iSuppli said, noting that total shipments of semiconductors to the Asia/Pacific region are forecasted to decline by only 6.8%.
Europe was the hardest hit region in 2009, with shipments of semiconductors to Europe estimated to fall by 20.8% and companies headquartered in the European region expected to suffer a combined drop of 24.2%.
ISuppli will issue its final 2009 market-share estimate in early 2010.
Preliminary Worldwide Ranking of the Top 20 Suppliers of Semiconductors in 2009 (Ranking by Revenue in Millions of U.S. Dollars)
| 2008 Rank | 2009 Rank | Company Name | 2008 Revenue | 2009 Revenue | Percent Change | Percent of Total | Cummulative Percent |
| 1 | 1 | Intel | 33,767 | 32,095 | -5.0% | 14.2% | 14.2% |
| 2 | 2 | Samsung Electronics | 16,902 | 17,123 | 1.3% | 7.6% | 21.7% |
| 3 | 3 | Toshiba | 11,081 | 10,640 | -4.0% | 4.7% | 26.4% |
| 4 | 4 | Texas Instruments | 11,068 | 9,612 | -13.2% | 4.2% | 30.6% |
| 5 | 5 | STMicroelectronics | 10,325 | 8,400 | -18.6% | 3.7% | 34.3% |
| 8 | 6 | Qualcomm | 6,477 | 6,475 | 0.0% | 2.9% | 37.2% |
| 9 | 7 | Hynix | 6,023 | 5,940 | -1.4% | 2.6% | 39.8% |
| 6 | 8 | Renesas Technology | 7,017 | 5,664 | -19.3% | 2.5% | 42.3% |
| 12 | 9 | Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) | 5,455 | 5,038 | -7.6% | 2.2% | 44.5% |
| 7 | 10 | Sony | 6,950 | 4,670 | -32.8% | 2.1% | 46.6% |
| 11 | 11 | NEC Electronics | 5,826 | 4,403 | -24.4% | 1.9% | 48.5% |
| 10 | 12 | Infineon Technologies | 5,954 | 4,340 | -27.1% | 1.9% | 50.5% |
| 14 | 13 | Broadcom | 4,643 | 4,198 | -9.6% | 1.9% | 52.3% |
| 16 | 14 | Micron Technology | 4,435 | 3,995 | -9.9% | 1.8% | 54.1% |
| 24 | 15 | MediaTek | 2,896 | 3,524 | 21.7% | 1.6% | 55.6% |
| 19 | 16 | Elpida Memory | 3,599 | 3,498 | -2.8% | 1.5% | 57.2% |
| 13 | 17 | Freescale Semiconductor | 4,966 | 3,344 | -32.7% | 1.5% | 58.6% |
| 15 | 18 | Panasonic Corporation | 4,473 | 3,330 | -25.6% | 1.5% | 60.1% |
| 17 | 19 | NXP | 4,055 | 3,247 | -19.9% | 1.4% | 61.5% |
| 18 | 20 | Sharp Electronics | 3,607 | 2,886 | -20.0% | 1.3% | 62.8% |
| Top 20 Companies | 159,519 | 142,422 | -10.7% | 62.8% | |||
| All Others | 99,389 | 84,313 | -15.2% | 37.2% | |||
| Total Semiconductor | 258,908 | 226,735 | -12.4% | 100.0% |
Source: iSuppli Corp. November 2009
Preliminary Estimate of Global Semiconductor Revenue in 2009 by Company Headquarters Location (Revenue in Millions of U.S. Dollars)
| 2008 Rank | 2009 Rank | Company Headquarters | 2008 Revenue | 2009 Revenue | Percent Change | Percent of Total | Cummulative Percent |
| 1 | 1 | Americas | 123,304 | 109,418 | -11.3% | 48.3% | 48.3% |
| 2 | 2 | Japan | 61,686 | 50,712 | -17.8% | 22.4% | 70.6% |
| 3 | 3 | Asia-Pacific | 43,271 | 43,389 | 0.3% | 19.1% | 89.8% |
| 4 | 4 | EMEA | 30,647 | 23,216 | -24.2% | 10.2% | 100.0% |
| Worldwide | 258,908 | 226,735 | -12.4% | 100.0% |
Source: iSuppli Corp. November 2009