- Worldwide semiconductor revenue totaled $595 billion in 2021, an increase of 26.3% from 2020, according to final results by Gartner, Inc.
Samsung Electronics regained the top spot from Intel for the first time since 2018, though by less than a percentage point, with revenue increasing 28% in 2021 (see Table 1). Intel’s revenue declined 0.3%, garnering 12.2% market share compared to 12.3% market share for Samsung. Within the top 10, AMD and Mediatek experienced the strongest growth in 2021 at 68.6% and 60.2% growth, respectively.
Table 1. Top 10 Semiconductor Vendors by Revenue, Worldwide, 2021 (Millions of U.S. Dollars)
| 2021 Rank | 2020 Rank | Vendor | 2021 Revenue | 2021 Market Share (%) | 2020 Revenue | 2020-2021 Growth (%) |
| 1 | 2 | Samsung Electronics | 73,197 | 12.3 | 57,181 | 28.0 |
| 2 | 1 | Intel | 72,536 | 12.2 | 72,759 | -0.3 |
| 3 | 3 | SK Hynix | 36,352 | 6.1 | 25,854 | 40.6 |
| 4 | 4 | Micron Technology | 28,624 | 4.8 | 21,780 | 31.4 |
| 5 | 5 | Qualcomm | 27,093 | 4.6 | 17,664 | 53.4 |
| 6 | 6 | Broadcom | 18,793 | 3.2 | 15,754 | 19.3 |
| 7 | 8 | MediaTek | 17,617 | 3.0 | 10,988 | 60.2 |
| 8 | 7 | Texas Instruments | 17,272 | 2.9 | 13,619 | 26.8 |
| 9 | 10 | NVIDIA | 16,815 | 2.8 | 10,643 | 58.0 |
| 10 | 14 | AMD | 16,299 | 2.7 | 9,665 | 68.6 |
| Others (outside top 10) | 270,354 | 45.4 | 214,982 | 25.8 | ||
| Total Market | 594,952 | 100.0 | 470,889 | 26.3 |
Source: Gartner (April 2022)
The most significant shift among the semiconductor vendor ranking in 2021 was HiSilicon dropping out of the top 25. “HiSilicon’s revenue declined 81%, from $8.2 billion in 2020 to $1.5 billion in 2021,” said Norwood. “This was a direct result of the U.S. sanctions against the company and its parent company Huawei.
“This also impacted China’s share of the semiconductor market as it declined from 6.7% share in 2020 to 6.5% in 2021. South Korea had the largest increase in market share in 2021 as strong growth in the memory market propelled South Korea to garner 19.3% of the global semiconductor market.”
Automotive and Wireless Communications Segments Experienced Strong Demand in 2021
2021 saw strong demand return to the automotive and industrial markets compared to the weak, COVID-disrupted market in 2020. The automotive market outperformed all other end markets, growing 34.9% in 2021. Wireless communications, which is dominated by smartphones, saw growth of 24.6%. The number of 5G handsets produced reached 556 million in 2021, up from 251 million units in 2020, and enterprises upgraded their Wi-Fi infrastructure for employees heading back to the office.
Driven by DRAM, memory accounted for 27.9% of semiconductor sales in 2021 and experienced 33.2% revenue growth, increasing $41.3 billion over the previous year. Memory continued to benefit from the key demand trend in the last couple of years — the shift to home/hybrid working and learning. This trend fueled increased server deployments by hyperscale cloud service providers to satisfy online working and entertainment, as well as a surge in end-market demand for PCs and ultramobiles.
