On May 25, IC Insights, a well-known semiconductor research institution, released the latest market report, which made statistics on the sales of world-renowned semiconductor manufacturers in the first quarter.

Data shows that the global TOP15 semiconductor factories have a total semiconductor revenue of US$101.863 billion in the first quarter of this year, a year-on-year increase of 21%, of which 14 manufacturers have revenue of more than US$3 billion.

The top 15 semiconductor manufacturers in this quarter are: Intel, Samsung, TSMC, SK Hynix, Micron, Qualcomm, Broadcom, NVIDIA, TI, MediaTek, AMD, Infineon, Apple, ST, and Kioxia.

The top five continued to be stable

Compared with the same period last year, the top five manufacturers are still Intel, Samsung, TSMC, SK Hynix and Micron.

According to the data, Intel ranked as the world’s leading semiconductor company with a revenue of US$18.676 billion in the first quarter, but the embarrassing point is that Intel’s annual sales record of 4% is also the only decliner among the top 15 semiconductor factories.

Samsung continued to rank second with revenue of $17.072 billion in the first quarter, a 15% increase from the same period last year.

As the only pure-play foundry in the TOP15 list, TSMC firmly occupies the third position with an annual growth rate of 25% and a revenue of US$12.911 billion.

The fourth and fifth SK Hynix and Micron both recorded good growth in the first quarter compared to the same period last year. They were US$7.628 billion, an annual increase of 26% (SK Hynix), and revenue of US$6.58 billion, an annual increase of 31% (Micron).

6~9 fierce chase

The top five positions on the list have remained stable for a long time, while other positions have fluctuated.

Like the same period last year, the sixth to ninth positions are still Qualcomm, Broadcom, Nvidia, and TI.

In the first quarter of this year, Qualcomm’s revenue was US$6.281 billion, an increase of 55% compared with the same period last year, surpassing Broadcom (US$4.84 billion, an annual increase of 19%) to sixth place.

Nvidia also surpassed the analog chip leader TI with a 51% annual growth in the first quarter, with revenue of $4.63 billion, rising one place to eighth. TI’s revenue in the first quarter of this year was $4.028 billion, an annual increase of 27%.

IC design manufacturers are as fierce as tigers

Looking at the entire list, the two figures of MediaTek and AMD are quite shocking.

Among them, MediaTek surpassed Infineon, Apple, ST, and Kioxia with a year-on-year increase of 90% and revenue of US$3.849 billion in the first quarter, and broke into the top 10 of the list from 16 in the same period last year. AMD is growing at 93% year-on-year, with $3.445 billion in revenue closely following MediaTek.

Overall, among the top 15 semiconductor companies, AMD (93%), MediaTek (90%), Qualcomm (55%), and Nvidia (51%) with the highest revenue growth are all fabless IC design manufacturers. Annual revenue growth in the first quarter exceeded 50%.

The prosperity of “lack of core”

Since the second half of 2020, “lack of cores” has become the biggest problem facing the semiconductor industry, and the entire semiconductor industry has shown a high degree of prosperity.

Stimulated by the multiple demands of shortages, price increases, and stockpiling, the performance of companies in the design, equipment, materials, IDM, packaging and testing and other sub-sectors has greatly improved.

And the length of this “core-lack” cycle is unprecedented. Some agencies are predicting that there will be no relief until next year and possibly 2023. There is no doubt that the semiconductor industry is currently entering a new upward cycle. With the further release of production capacity, the performance of semiconductor companies will continue to rise in the future.

Whoever seizes the opportunity in this cycle can become the next “AMD, MediaTek”.