Memory and foundry companies climb in 2010 semiconductor ranking!

SCOTTSDALE, USA: A forecast of the 2010 top 20 semiconductor suppliers is included as part of IC Insights' soon-to-be-released November Update to The McClean Report. As shown in Fig. 1, all of the companies, except Sony, are expected to register strong double-digit growth rates in 2010. Moreover, only $50 million in sales is forecast to separate the 4th and 5th place rankings this year (i.e., these spots are still up for grabs).

Of the big five memory suppliers in the top 20 ranking (i.e., Samsung, Toshiba, Hynix, Micron, and Elpida), all but Samsung are expected to gain at least one position (with Elpida jumping four spots to 11th place).

Although Samsung is not forecast to move up in the ranking, it is likely to gain ground on the number one supplier--Intel. In 2009, Intel's semiconductor sales were 52 percent larger than Samsung's. However, Intel's sales margin over Samsung is forecast to shrink to only 23 percent this year!

The two largest semiconductor foundries, TSMC and UMC, are also expected to do very well in 2010. As shown in Fig. 1, TSMC is forecast to move up two spots in the ranking to the 4th position, while UMC is expected to jump five spots into 19th place!

If foundries were excluded from the top 20 ranking, MediaTek (2010 sales forecast to be $3,695 million) and Marvell (2010 sales forecast to be $3,574 million) would claim the 19th and 20th positions, respectively.

It should be noted that MediaTek, after growing by 22 percent in 2009 (while the total semiconductor industry declined 9 percent ), is forecast to grow only 6 percent in 2010 (while the total semiconductor market grows 31 percent ). The low growth rate for the company this year is expected to drop MediaTek from being ranked 17th in 2009 to 21st in 2010.

Although Renesas and NEC did not officially merge until April 1, 2010, for ease of comparison, IC Insights combined the two companies' semiconductor sales for all of 2009 and 2010. As shown, the "new" Renesas is forecast to fall from 4th place in 2009 to 6th in 2010.

Of the top 20 suppliers, there are expected to be 10 companies that outperform the total semiconductor industry growth rate of 31 percent this year and 10 that fall short of this mark. Of the top 10 performers, five are forecast to be the big memory companies mentioned above and two are expected to be the top foundries TSMC and UMC. The remaining top performing companies include Broadcom, Infineon, and TI.Fig. 1: Source - IC Insights, USA.