Renesas firmly in No. 1 automotive semiconductor spot

BOSTON, USA: The Strategy Analytics Automotive Electronics service report, “Automotive Semiconductor Vendor 2010 Vendor Market Shares,” reveals that Renesas Electronics is firmly in the lead in the automotive semiconductor segment, with a 14 percent market share.

Renesas Electronics became the new number 1 automotive semiconductor vendor in 2010, created with the merger of NEC Electronics and Renesas Technology—the two companies had been ranked numbers 4 and 5 in calendar year 2009, after Infineon, Freescale and ST.

The order of the remainder of the top five vendors is unchanged from 2009: Infineon, followed by Freescale and NXP. Together, the top five vendors commanded a 47 percent share of calendar year 2010 automotive semiconductor revenues.

According to Strategy Analytics analysis, automotive semiconductor vendor revenues rose to $20.7 billion, a significant 43 percent increase between 2009 and 2010.

Chris Webber, VP of the Strategy Analytics Global Automotive Practice, said: “The extraordinary growth in vendor revenues in 2010 was driven by a combination of rebounding global vehicle production, supply chain restocking and incremental new business from growing electronics penetration of new vehicles. A semiconductor component shortage in face of exceptional demand means that many semiconductor vendors would have recorded even higher growth had it not been for these customer allocation issues.”