iSuppli: Top-25 Chip Suppliers

It was a tale of two companies in the semiconductor industry in 2006, with leading chip supplier Intel Corp. suffering a revenue decline, while rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) nearly doubled its sales, according to iSuppli Corp.'s final 2006 market-share ranking. “For U.S. microprocessor giant Intel, 2006 was the worst of times, as its global semiconductor revenue dropped by 11.1 percent from 2005," said Dale Ford, vice president, market intelligence, for iSuppli. “The revenue decline, which was due to Intel's bleak performance in its core PC microprocessor and flash-memory businesses, erased nearly all of the company's sales gains from its strong year in 2005. Intel's 2006 revenue of $31.5 billion was less than half a percentage point higher than its sales in 2004. “For Intel's smaller U.S. rival, AMD, 2006 was the best of times as it achieved a whopping 91.6 percent increase in revenue for the year, partly due to a major acquisition, but also because of strong gains in microprocessor market share," Ford added. This robust increase in revenue caused AMD's ranking to rise to eighth place in 2006, up seven positions from the 15th rank in 2005. The table below and attached presents iSuppli's final market-share ranking for the world's Top-25 semiconductor suppliers in 2006. iSuppli Table: Top-25 Semiconductor Suppliers Worldwide in 2006 (Ranking by Revenue in Millions of U.S. Dollars)