Semiconductor sales leaders by year

This article lists the top 10~25 largest semiconductor companies by sales leaders since 1987.

The article ranks two types of semiconductor companies mixing them in one list:
1. Integrated Device Manufacturers (IDM) such as chip makers from Intel, Samsung, and STMicroelectronics that design, manufacture and sell their chips.
2. Fabless manufacturers such as Qualcomm, NVIDIA and AMD that design and sell chips but outsource manufacturing to foundry companies.

You can also find a list of foundry companies such as TSMC and UMC that manufacture chips designed and sold by their customers especially from fabless companies as described before.
Finally there's information about semiconductor equipment sales leaders describing IC equipment supplier's revenue, which support all the semiconductor companies.

Gartner Dataquest Corp. has the longest history as the reference publisher of this ranking. Other sources of semiconductor sales market share information have also become available by iSuppli Corporation starting from year 2000. Only corporate semiconductor revenues are taken into account and businesses activities outside this sphere are excluded, for example IBM non-semiconductor business lines are excluded.

In the majority of cases, rankings are based on the analysis of the financial reports of the chip makers, although definitional issues regarding chip types, multichip modules, foundry manufacturing and chip license revenues create differences in reported numbers. The ranking for a given year is published in March of the following year when all the financial reports of the companies are closed.

What is interesting about these revenue numbers is that they are nominal (without factoring in inflation). Many companies' revenues in 2009 after inflation (~ 3%/year), would actually be lower than in 2000. This is an important point that may not bode well for employment in this sector (i.e., real revenue per employee is lower in 2009 compared to 2000).

IHS iSuppli analysis report

Ranking for year 2013

SourceÂ : IHS iSuppli Semiconductor preliminary rankings for 2013

(other semiconductors, like foundries for example are below)

Note: All following acquisition went to American Companies.

(1) Intel Corporation's acquisition of Fujitsu Semiconductor Wireless Products.
(2) Samsung Electronics sold their 4- and 8-bit microcontroller business to IXYS.
(3) Micron Technology's acquisition of Elpida.
(4) Broadcom's acquisition of Renesas Electronics' LTE unit.

Ranking for year 2012

SourceÂ : IHS iSuppli Semiconductor preliminary rankings for 2012

(foundries excluded)

Note:

(1) Samsung Electronics acquisition of Samsung Electro-Mechanics share of Samsung LED.

Ranking for year 2011

SourceÂ : IHS iSuppli Semiconductor preliminary rankings for 2011 IHS iSuppli supplied rankings for 2011

(foundries excluded)

Note:

(1) Intel Corporation acquisition of Infineon Technologies wireless division.
(2) Texas Instruments acquisition of National Semiconductor.
(3) Qualcomm acquisition of Atheros Communications.
(4) ON Semiconductor acquisition of Sanyo semiconductor division.

Ranking for year 2010

SourceÂ : iSuppli Corporation supplied rankings for 2010

(foundries excluded)

Note:

(1) Renesas Electronics was formed by the merger of Renesas Technology and NEC Semiconductors.
(2) Micron Technology acquisition of Numonyx.

Ranking for year 2009

SourceÂ : iSuppli Corporation supplied rankings for 2009

(foundries excluded)

Ranking for year 2008

SourceÂ : iSuppli Corporation supplied rankings for 2008

(foundries excluded)

Ranking for year 2007

SourceÂ : iSuppli Corporation supplied rankings for 2007

(foundries excluded)

Ranking for year 2006

SourceÂ : iSuppli Corporation supplied rankings for 2006

(foundries excluded)

NotesÂ :

(1)Â : In December 2005, AMD divested itself of its Flash Memory business, choosing solely to focus on its microprocessor and logic businesses. This change led to predictions that AMD's market share and spot in these rankings would drop precipitously. However, in June 2006 AMD announced its intent to purchase ATI Technologies. The buyout of ATI Technologies closed in October 2006, and the additional revenues from the purchase of ATI make up the majority of AMD's revenue and market share gains (in the terms of this list)
(2)Â : In 2006, the semiconductor operations of the parent company, Philips were sold to a consortium of private equity firms through an LBO to form a new separate legal entity named NXP Semiconductors.
(3)Â : In 2006, Freescale (formerly known as Motorola semiconductors) agreed to be acquired by a consortium of private equity firms through an LBO â€"said to be the largest leveraged buyout of a technology company in historyâ€".
(4)Â : In 2006, the memory activities (essentially DRAM) of the parent company, Infineon were spun off to form a new separate legal entity named Qimonda. The comparison between year 2006 and 2005 takes into account this split. Qimonda becomes the world's fourth largest DRAM manufacturer.
(5)Â : In 2006, Spansion joint-venture from AMD 37% and Fujitsu 63%.

Ranking for year 2005

SourceÂ : iSuppli Corporation supplied rankings for 2005

(foundries excluded)

NotesÂ :

(1)Â : In 2005, the two companies AMD and Fujitsu sold their stake in their joint-venture company Spansion previously controlled by AMD. With combined revenues of $5.97 billion in 2005, AMD/Spansion would have jumped to number eight in the rankings if AMD had not spun off its Spansion flash-memory division. Following the split, AMD was ranked at 15th and Spansion at 24th in 2005.
(2)Â : The foundry activities of IBM are excluded from this revenue.

Ranking for year 2004

SourceÂ : iSuppli Corporation supplied rankings for 2004

(foundries excluded)

Ranking for year 2003

Source iSuppli (foundries excluded)

NotesÂ :

(1)Â : In 2002, the semiconductor operations of the two Japanese parent companies, Mitsubishi and Hitachi were spun off and merged to form a new separate legal entity named Renesas.
(2)Â : In 2003, the semiconductor operations of the parent company, Motorola were spun off to form a new separate legal entity named Freescale.
(3)Â : The foundry activities of IBM are excluded from this revenue.
(4)Â : In 2003, AMD and Fujitsu created a joint-venture company named Spansion, which gathers their activities in flash memories. Because AMD owns 60% of the company, its revenue is assigned to AMD in the ranking.

Ranking for year 2002

Source iSuppli (foundries excluded)

NotesÂ :

(1)Â : The foundry activities of IBM are excluded from this revenue.

Ranking for year 2001

Source iSuppli (foundries excluded)

NotesÂ :

(1)Â : The foundry activities of IBM are excluded from this revenue.
(2)Â : In 2000, the semiconductor operations of parent company, Lucent Technologies were spun off to form a new separate legal entity named Agere Systems.

Ranking for year 2000

Source iSuppli (foundries excluded)

NotesÂ :

(1)Â : The foundry activities of IBM are excluded from this revenue.
(2)Â : In 2000, the semiconductor operations of parent company, Lucent Technologies were spun off to form a new separate legal entity named Agere Systems.