The first half of the year has brought a serious shake-up to the semiconductor supplier market, analysts said. According to preliminary results released from market research firm IC Insights, there was a good deal of movement up and down the firm’s ranking of the top-20 semiconductor suppliers during the first six months of 2007 as compared to the full-year 2006.
In the August update to IC Insights’ McClean Report, the firm said its rankings will show Freescale Semiconductor showing signs of strain from the recent financial foibles of its biggest customer, Motorola Inc. Freescale went from being the 9th largest semiconductor supplier in the world in 2006 to the rank of 16th in the first half of 2007, IC Insights said, as Motorola has gone from holding a 23% share of mobile phone unit shipments in Q2 2006 to securing only a 14% share in Q2 2007.
In more positive news, the firm said Qualcomm Inc. gained four positions, up from its ranking of 17th in 2006 to 13th in the first half of 2007. Meanwhile, NXP showed steady success with a move into the top 10 ranking after being ranked 11th in 2006, and Sony moved up one spot in the top 10 ranking to currently reside in 9th place.
Although dropping two positions in the ranking, IC Insights noted in its preliminary report that chipmaker AMD “displayed a nice recovery” in Q2 2007 with its sales increasing 12% sequentially.
Meanwhile, IC Insights reported that the first half of 2007’s DRAM price collapse was evident in what the firm called the “extremely poor” Q2 results of many of the major memory suppliers. Toshiba, Hynix, Qimonda, and Elpida were especially hard hit, IC Insights said, with each registering a sequential sales drop of more than 20%.
In spite of the market’s troubles, memory maker Hynix moved from 7th to 6th place in the firm’s ranking, while the other suppliers are expected to rebound in the second half of the year, IC Insights said.
IC Insights reminded that nothing is set in stone when it comes to this market. The firm, which has predicted that the semiconductor industry will see just 2% growth over the entire year, said that there should be a “noticeable seasonal rebound” in overall IC demand beginning in September, which could cause “significant changes” in the top 20 semiconductor ranking in the second half of 2007.