"For the electronics and semiconductor industries, 2008 started on a positive note but ended with a whimper as the global recession limited demand," said Alfonso Velosa, research director at Gartner. "Despite this, given the overall unit shipment growth of most of the leading OEMs in 2008, the semiconductor consumption threshold to be in the top 10 was raised to $6.0 billion, $0.1 billion more than in 2007."

HP remained the leading OEM for semiconductor consumption. It accounted for $16.5 billion in 2008 — a flat result compared with 2007. Despite a significant increase in unit shipments; this highlights the market's changing product mix and the decline in semiconductor ASPs. As the top PC maker, HP was the leading consumer of microprocessors and memory semiconductors.

"HP and Nokia showed that manufacturers benefited from a significant decline in average selling prices," Mr. Velosa said. "In addition, Nokia continued to shift its semiconductor-sourcing strategy away from designing application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) for its handsets to using off-the-shelf application-specific standard products (ASSPs). Since Nokia is the world's largest vendor of mobile phones, this shift will continue to have a major impact on the semiconductor market."

"Apple again demonstrated how innovative use of technology and a keen understanding of consumer requirements can lead to strong growth in revenue and thus in semiconductor consumption," Mr. Velosa said. "It jumped up to the No. 6 position, with $7 billion in semiconductor consumption for its branded products, driven by the strength of Apple's mobile phones, computers and portable media players (PMPs). Its integration of sensors and focus on industrial design and the ‘user experience’ set an example that few OEMs have been able to emulate."

Image source: Nokia