London, England, May. 04, 2016 –
According to the latest analysis by Semicast Research, Texas Instruments was the leading vendor of semiconductors to the industrial sector in 2015, ahead of Infineon Technologies. Intel passed STMicroelectronics to become the third largest vendor following the acquisition of Altera, with Renesas Electronics completing the top five.
Semicast defines the industrial sector to include traditional areas such as factory automation, motor drives, lighting, building automation, test & measurement and power & energy, as well as medical electronics and industrial transportation; the aerospace & defense sector is excluded from the analysis. Using this definition, Semicast estimates that revenues for industrial semiconductors totaled $40.7 billion in 2015.
Semicast's industrial semiconductor vendor share analysis ranks TI as the leading supplier in 2015, with an estimated market share of 8.1%, ahead of Infineon with 6.8%, Intel (4.9%), STMicroelectronics (4.4%) and Renesas (3.8%).
Colin Barnden, Principal Analyst at Semicast Research and study author, commented "In practice the industrial sector is a collection of markets within a market and is heavily fragmented across applications, OEMs and regions. Accordingly, it has no dominant semiconductor vendor, with the top ten together accounting for only around 40% of the total. The industrial semiconductor market is also fragmented across product types, with the three largest categories (analog, optoelectronics and MCU/MPU) accounting for around two-thirds of revenues, but with no one vendor strong in all three areas."
2015 was a record year for M&A activity in the semiconductor industry and this has influenced vendor rankings in the industrial sector too. Infineon's acquisition of International Rectifier in January 2015 consolidated its position as number two supplier; Intel's acquisition of Altera at the end of December 2015 raised it above STMicroelectronics to third; NXP's acquisition of Freescale Semiconductor in early December 2015 secured the combined company seventh position in the vendor ranking. In contrast, TI has not undertaken any significant mergers and acquisitions activity since the purchase of National Semiconductor almost five years ago, and has instead focused on organic sales growth.
Changes in the value of the Euro and Yen relative to the US Dollar have also impacted the vendor share ranking. Compared with 2014, the Euro was an average of sixteen percent weaker against the US Dollar in 2015, while the Yen was almost thirteen percent weaker.
Revenues for industrial semiconductors have now doubled since 2009, compared with growth of around fifty percent for the total semiconductor market over the same period. Barnden summed up "Companies that may have dismissed the industrial sector in the past would be advised to take a closer look, particularly as medium term growth prospects have slowed in other sectors, such as mobile and PC."
While supply to the industrial sector is led by some of the largest semiconductor vendors, the diverse nature of the application and customer base means there is room for many.