One third of all semiconductors consumed by top 10 OEMs

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18 March 2009 News

The top 10 original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) accounted for $91,6 billion of the semiconductor market in 2008, representing one-third of all semiconductor consumption, according to Gartner. This represented a 3,8% decline from 2007. Despite the slowdown in the consumer sector, the leading applications remain PCs and mobile phones.

“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, accounting 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 average selling prices (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 ASPs,” 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. 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. Its integration of sensors and focus on industrial design and the ‘user experience’ set an example that few OEMs have been able to emulate.

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One third of all semiconductors consumed by top 10 OEMs

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