Global semiconductor market hit $340 billion in 2014: Gartner

Worldwide semiconductor market revenue hit $340.3 billion in 2014, increasing by 7.9 percent over the previous year's tally of $315.4 billion, according to Gartner.
The information technology research firm's latest report shows that the world's top 25 semiconductor vendors' combined revenue increase outstripped the global total, seeing an 11.7 percent boost in revenue growth during the year.
The top 25 vendors in the industry, including Intel, Samsung, and Qualcomm, made up 72.4 percent of the total market revenue -- an increase on the 69.9 percent of the market for which they accounted in 2013.
Once again, Intel topped the list of global semiconductor vendors by revenue, seeing a return to growth after two years of revenue decline. The company recorded a 7.7 percent growth in revenue over the year to $52.3 billion, with 15.4 percent of the global market share.
Intel was followed by Samsung Electronics, which saw a 13.4 percent growth in revenue for the year to $34.7 billion, taking 10.2 percent market share, and Qualcomm, which came in third with a 12.1 percent increase in revenue to $19.3 billion, claiming 5.7 percent market share.

(Image: Screenshot by Leon Spencer/ZDNet)

Gartner research vice president Andrew Norwood said that 2014 saw all device categories post positive growth, unlike in 2013, when application-specific integrated circuits, discretes, and microcomponents all declined.
"The memory market was the best performer for the second year in a row, growing 16.6 percent, meaning the rest of the market only achieved 4.9 percent growth," said Norwood. "As a group, DRAM vendors performed best, lifted by the booming DRAM market, which saw revenue increase 32 percent to $46.1 billion, surpassing the all-time high of $41.8 billion set in 1995," he said.
Gartner's findings, outlined in its Market Share Analysis: Semiconductors, Worldwide, 2014 report, comes as a regulatory filing from Samsung reveals that arch rival Apple remains one of the Korean tech giant's top sources of revenue thanks to its semiconductor business.

According to the company's annual end-of-year filings for 2014 to South Korea's Financial Supervisory Service, Apple, Deutsche Telekom, Ingram Micro, Sprint, and Verizon were the top five sources of income for the Korean tech giant, with the companies' business amounting to a collective 13 percent of its revenue.
Samsung's semiconductor business -- one of the company's strongest-performing units -- supplies memory chips for various Apple products. It is also a major contract maker of Apple's A-series processors that power the iPhone.

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