Top 20 suppliers show 19% sales growth in Q3

11/11/2009

Echoing estimates made by the SIA (Semiconductor Industry Association) earlier this week, IC Insights this morning reported that Q3 showed strong seasonal demand, following a Q2 inventory replenish phase.

All in all, the market research company reported that the top 20 suppliers showed an averaged 19% growth rate in the September quarter, equal to the growth the top 20 showed in the June quarter. (See below listing)

"Third quarter sales results from the top 20 semiconductor producers illustrate once again why IC Insights has, since the beginning of this downturn, encouraged its clients to think quarterly about 2009," Bill McClean, president of IC Insights, said in a statement.

McClean and his company began encouraging the semiconductor industry to "think quarterly, not annually" in terms of a market recovery in December 2008. Doing so, IC Insights said, would allow the industry to begin to form a positive outlook about the "other side" of this downturn, in the second half of 2009 and beyond.

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"The semiconductor industry continues to move through this silicon cycle very quickly as it recovers from recession," McClean said today.

IC Insights estimated that one year after the downturn began in Q4 2008, the Q4 2009 chip market will return to growth mirroring the health of the worldwide economy and electronic system sales.

The company noted that in Q3, the DRAM and NAND flash markets surged and helped Toshiba and Hynix post sequential sales increases of 30% and 31%, respectively, leading the top 20 in terms of revenue growth.

"…Even though 2009 will go down as one of the steepest downturns in semiconductor history (-12%), four of the top 20 companies are expected to register higher sales in 2009 than in 2008," McClean said. "Using company guidance as well as IC Insights’ forecasts for Q4 semiconductor sales levels, Samsung, Toshiba, Qualcomm, and MediaTek are expected to show sales growth this year. Quite an accomplishment considering that 2009 is likely to be the worst recession to hit the worldwide economy in 63 years!"

1Q09-3Q09 Top 20 Semiconductor Sales Leaders (SM)

1Q09-3Q09 Rank	2008 Rank	Company	Headquarters	2008 Tot Semi	1Q09 Tot Semi	2Q09Tot Semi	2Q/1Q% Change	3Q09 Tot Semi	3Q/2Q% Change	1Q09-3Q09 Tot Semi
1 2 3 4 5	1 2 5 3 4	Intel Samsung Toshiba TI TSMC*	U.S. South Korea Japan U.S. Taiwan	34,490 20,272 10,422 11,618 10,556	6,573 3,686 2,008 1,939 1,162	7,382 4,767 2,310 2,285 2,238	12% 29% 15% 18% 93%	8,639 6,002 3,002 2,678 2,740	17% 26% 30% 17% 22%	22,594 14,455 7,320 6,902 6,140
6 7 8 9 10	6 8 7 10 9	ST Qualcomm** Renesas Hynix Sony	Europe U.S. Japan South Korea Japan	10,325 6,477 7,017 6,182 6,420	1,657 1,316 1,233 927 1,270	1,970 1,786 1,381 1,301 1,260	19% 36% 12% 40% -1%	2,269 1,699 1,580 1,704 1,325	15% -5% 15% 31% 5%	5,896 4,801 4,203 3,932 3,855
11 12 13 14 15	12 14 11 13 18	AMO Micron Infineon NEC Broadcom**	U.S. U.S. Europe Japan U.S.	5,808 5,688 5,903 5,732 4,509	1,177 1,020 970 863 827	1,184 1,160 1,150 1,005 966	1% 14% 19% 16% 17%	1,396 1,395 1,400 1,214 1,195	18% 20% 22% 21% 24%	3,757 3,575 3,520 3,082 2,988
16 17 18 19 20	19 25 17 15 16	Panasonic MediaTek** Fujitau NXP Freescale	Japan Taiwan Japan Europe U.S.	4,321 2,845 4,536 5,020 4,959	850 704 820 648 798	920 849 743 832 784	8% 21% -9% 28% -2%	1,120 1,046 910 992 850	22% 23% 22% 19% 8%	2,890 2,599 2,473 2,472 2,432
-	-	Total Top 20	-	173,100	30,448	36,273	19%	43,165	19%	109,886
			*Foundry	**Fabless

Source: IC Insights, November 2009; www.edn.com.