iSuppli's Top20 Chip Suppliers for 2008

“Global semiconductor revenue is expected to decline by 2% in 2008 due to a 16.9% plunge in sales of memory Integrated Circuits (ICs), said Dale Ford, senior vice president, market intelligence services, for iSuppli. “Only two out of the Top-29 memory IC suppliers, i.e. companies that are expected to earn roughly $100 million or more in 2008, will see their memory IC revenue grow in 2008. For the memory IC business, 2008 can only be described as disastrous.” Semiconductor slump If memory revenue was excluded from the total semiconductor market in 2008, the remaining chip industry would grow by 2% in 2008, according to iSuppli’s preliminary estimate. Memory will account for 17.9% of global semiconductor revenue in 2008. However, the downturn in semiconductor revenue in 2008 is not entirely limited to memory suppliers. Six of the Top-10 semiconductor suppliers are expected to suffer revenue declines in 2008, including some companies that are not focused on memory: Texas Instruments of the United States and Renesas Technology and Sony of Japan. “In the face of increasingly negative economic news, orders for semiconductors have virtually stopped, leading to great fear and uncertainty throughout the entire semiconductor industry,” Mr Ford noted. No thanks for the memories Among the world’s Top-20 semiconductor suppliers, the memory IC suppliers will experience some of the largest declines in revenue, according iSuppli’s preliminary ranking. The worst performer among the Top-20 chip suppliers is expected to be South Korean memory chip maker Hynix Semiconductor whose revenue is set to drop by 29.1% in 2008. This $2.6 billion revenue decline is expected to cause Hynix's global semiconductor ranking to fall by three positions to ninth place in 2008, down from sixth in 2007. Another memory supplier among the Top-20 semiconductor makers, Micron Technology of the United States, is set for a 9.2% revenue decrease in 2008, causing its ranking in the overall semiconductor market to slip by one position to 16th place. The world’s largest memory IC supplier and the globe’s No.-2 chipmaker, Samsung Electronics of South Korea, is set for a 9.1% revenue decline for the year. Japanese memory supplier Toshiba is set to undergo a 5.9% decline in overall semiconductor revenue in 2008, but the company will maintain its fourth-place ranking. Among the world’s Top-10 memory IC suppliers, the largest declines in revenue will be suffered by Germany’s Qimonda with a plunge of 40.7%; Hynix, with its 29.1% drop; Taiwan’s Nanya Technology with another 29.1% decrease and Powerchip Semiconductor, also of Taiwan, with a 23.4% reduction. Slipped memories The year 2008 will mark the second consecutive annual revenue contraction in global memory IC revenue, following a 3.9% decline in 2007. Every memory segment will decline in 2008, with DRAM leading the way down, at a 19.8% decline in revenue. NOR-type flash memory will suffer a 16.2% drop and SRAM revenue will decline by 16.1%. NAND-type flash memory, commonly used for data storage in products like Personal Media Players (PMPs), will fare slightly better than the other major memory types, with a 13.1% decrease in revenue. However, this is the first time in the history of the NAND flash market that revenue will decline on an annual basis. Asia/Pacific region gets mauled by memory The impact of the memory market decline is evident in the overall performance of companies headquartered in the Asia/Pacific region. As a group, these companies are expected to see their revenue contract by 11.2%, according to iSuppli’s preliminary estimate. The region’s share of global semiconductor revenue will decline to 16.8% in 2008, down from 18.5% in 2007. Japanese semiconductor companies also are expected to see their collective revenues decline by 1.1%. iSuppli projects that companies headquartered in the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) and the Americas will see their revenue grow by 0.8% and 0.5% respectively in 2008. Silver lining sighted? “About the only good thing that can be said about the 16.9% decline in memory revenue in 2008 is that it pales in comparison to the 48.2% plunge in 2001,” Ford said. “However, the dot-com-bust decline in 2001 was preceded by a 42.7% surge in 2000.” Looking beyond memory, a few segments of the semiconductor industry are expected to experience strength in 2008. The Programmable Logic Device (PLD) market is set to enjoy healthy growth in 2008 with revenue increasing by 7.6%. This market is led by U.S. suppliers Xilinx with expected 6.5% growth in 2008, and Altera, whose PLD revenue is set to rise by 12.1%. Optical components are expected to achieve 6.2% global revenue growth in 2008. Major companies expected to benefit from the healthy expansion in this market in 2008 are Sharp Electronics, Panasonic, Avago Technologies, Samsung and Hamamatsu Photonics. Revenue for the global microprocessor market—led by Intel—is expected to grow by 5.7% in 2008. U.S.-based Intel, the world’s largest semiconductor supplier, will outperform the overall market with a 0.4% increase in total revenue. Other semiconductor categories that are expected to enjoy relatively strong growth in 2008 are microcontrollers, with a revenue increase of 3.3%, and logic application-specific ICs with a 3% rise. Star performers Based on its expected revenue growth of 19.6%, Qualcomm is expected to jump five places to number 8 in the rankings in 2008, up from number 13 in 2007, marking its inaugural entry into the annual semiconductor Top-10. Qualcomm of the United States will be the first fabless semiconductor company to enter the ranks of the annual Top 10. The strongest performer among the Top-20 in 2008 will be Broadcom, another U.S. fabless company, which is expected to achieve growth of 26.4%. This will propel it up the ranks by five positions, rising to 14th place, up from 19th in 2007. The creation of the ST-NXP Wireless joint venture in 2008 is having a notable impact on the growth of STMicroelectronics and NXP. iSuppli has consolidated all revenues from this new business under STMicroelectronics and this added revenue is expected to help the company to achieve 7.1% growth in 2008. On the other hand, the separation of this business will contribute to an expected decline of 23.9% in NXP revenue in 2008, causing its rank to fall to 17th place, down from 11th before.