Worldwide semiconductor revenue totaled $466,2-billion in 2020, an increase of 10,4% from 2019, according to final results by Gartner.
“Memory, GPUs and 5G chipsets led semiconductor growth, driven by hyperscale, PC, ultramobile and 5G handset end-market demand, while automotive and industrial electronics suffered due to lower spending or a pause in spending owing to COVID-19,” says Andrew Norwood, research vice-president at Gartner.
Intel retained its position as the No1 global semiconductor vendor by revenue in 2020, followed by Samsung Electronics, SK hynix and Micron. Intel’s semiconductor revenue grew 7,4%, driven by growth of its core client and server CPU businesses. Overall, the top performers in the top 10 were NVIDIA and MediaTek. NVIDIA’s 45,2% growth was primarily driven by the company’s gaming-related and data centre businesses. MediaTek’s revenue grew 38,1% in 2020 driven by the disruption to Huawei’s business throughout the year.
Memory, which accounted for 26,7% of semiconductor sales in 2020, was the second best-performing device category, experiencing a 13,5% revenue increase. “Memory benefited from the key trend in 2020 – the shift to home working and learning – which fueled increased server build from hyperscale vendors to satisfy online working and entertainment, as well as a surge in PCs and ultramobiles,” says Norwood.
Within memory, NAND flash experienced the best performance with revenue growth of 25,2% due to a shortage in 1H20. “In 2021 both NAND flash and DRAM will be in shortage, sending pricing higher though the year and revenues rocketing by around 25%” says Norwood. “This sets memory focused Samsung up with a good chance of recapturing the top spot in the semiconductor market from Intel in 2021.”
