Gartner Says Worldwide Semiconductor Revenue Grew 10.4% in 2020

STAMFORD, Conn. -- April 12, 2021 -- Worldwide semiconductor revenue totaled $466.2 billion in 2020, an increase of 10.4% from 2019, according to final results by Gartner, Inc.

“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,” said Andrew Norwood, research vice president at Gartner.

Intel retained its position as the No. 1 global semiconductor vendor by revenue in 2020, followed by Samsung Electronics, SK hynix and Micron (see Table 1). 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 center businesses. MediaTek’s revenue grew 38.1% in 2020 driven by the disruption to Huawei’s business throughout the year.

Table 1. Top 10 Semiconductor Vendors by Revenue, Worldwide, 2020 (Millions of U.S. Dollars)

2020 Rank	2019 Rank	Vendor	2020 Revenue	2020 Market Share (%)	2019 Revenue	2019-2020 Growth (%)
1	1	Intel	72,759	15.6	67,754	7.4
2	2	Samsung Electronics	57,729	12.4	52,389	10.2
3	3	SK hynix	25,854	5.5	22,297	16.0
4	4	Micron Technology	22,037	4.7	20,254	8.8
5	6	Qualcomm	17,632	3.8	13,613	29.5
6	5	Broadcom	15,754	3.4	15,322	2.8
7	7	Texas Instruments	13,619	2.9	13,364	1.9
8	13	MediaTek	10,988	2.4	7,958	38.1
9	16	NVIDIA	10,643	2.3	7,331	45.2
10	14	KIOXIA	10,374	2.2	7,827	32.5
		Others (outside top 10)	208,848	44.8	194,228	7.5
		Total Market	466,237	100.0	422,337	10.4

Source: Gartner (April 2021)

Memory Accounted for One-Third of Revenue Growth

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,” said Mr. 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%” said Mr. Norwood. “This sets memory focused Samsung up with a good chance of recapturing the top spot in the semiconductor market from Intel in 2021.”

Gartner clients can get more information in “Market Share Analysis: Semiconductors, Worldwide, 2020.”

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