Semiconductor Intelligence said that NVIDIA may become the number one semiconductor company by revenue this year. The company expects NVIDIA's revenue in 2023 to be approximately US$52.9 billion, compared with Intel's US$51.6 billion. With the advantage of artificial intelligence processors, Nvidia's revenue in 2023 will be almost double its revenue in 2022.
Visit the purchase page:
JD.com NVIDIA series product summary
Intel has been the top semiconductor company for most of the past 21 years—except for 2017, 2018, and 2021 when Samsung held the top spot.
Despite the rapid development of the semiconductor industry and the large number of startups, the top ten companies in 2023 have all been in business for at least 30 years.
NVIDIA is the youngest, only 30 years old. Broadcom Inc., ranked fourth, is the result of Avago Technologies' acquisition of Broadcom in 2015. However, the original Broadcom was founded 32 years ago. Avago, a subsidiary of Hewlett-Packard, entered the semiconductor industry 52 years ago.
Qualcomm, which has a history of 38 years, rose to fifth place mainly through mobile phone IC and licensing revenue. Only Qualcomm's IC revenue is included in the ranking. STMicroelectronics, ranked tenth, was founded in 1987 by the merger of Italy's SGS Microelettronica and France's Thomson Semiconductor. Both SGS and Thomson's semiconductor businesses date back to the 1970s.
Two of the top ten companies were industry pioneers some 70 years ago. Texas Instruments (TI) was founded in 1930 and entered the semiconductor business in 1954. Infineon Technologies was originally part of Siemens AG, founded in 1847. Siemens began producing semiconductors in 1953. Infineon was spun off as an independent company in 1999.
Two Korean companies, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, have more than 40 years of experience in semiconductor sales. They have dominated the memory business after it was largely abandoned by U.S. and Japanese companies (with the exception of Micron Technology). SK Hynix, formerly known as Hyundai Electronics, began producing semiconductors in 1983. In 1999, Hyundai merged with LG Semiconductor to form Hynix, which later became SK Hynix.
Intel was founded 55 years ago, initially selling memory devices. AMD began producing logic ICs 54 years ago. Today, these two companies mainly sell microprocessors and together account for more than 95% of the computer microprocessor market.
The relative stability of the top semiconductor companies can be seen by comparing the top ten in 2023 to 1984, 39 years ago, and the year Semiconductor Intelligence began its semiconductor market analysis.
Of the top ten semiconductor companies in 1984, most are still operating in one form or another today. TI ranked first in 1984. Since then, TI has narrowed its scope and become primarily an analog company.
Motorola, which ranks second, split its discrete device business into ON Semiconductor in 1999. ON Semiconductor is now an $8 billion company and acquired industry pioneer Fairchild Semiconductor in 2016. Motorola spun off its IC business into Freescale Semiconductor in 2004.
NXP Semiconductors was spun off from seventh-ranked Philips in 2006. Freescale merged with NXP in 2015. NXP is currently a $13 billion company. National Semiconductor, ranked fifth, was acquired by TI in 2011. Intel and AMD ranked seventh and eighth respectively in 1984. By 2023, they will be ranked second and sixth respectively.
For much of the 1980s and 1990s, Japanese companies were strong in the semiconductor industry, especially in memory. They are all large, vertically integrated companies. Beginning in the late 1990s, these companies began to divest their semiconductor businesses.
Renesas Electronics was formed by merging the non-storage business units of Hitachi, Mitsubishi and NEC. Renesas Electronics is now a $13 billion company.
NEC and Hitachi spun off their DRAM businesses in 1999 to form ElpidaMemory. Elpida was acquired by Micron Technology in 2013.
Toshiba spun off its flash memory business into Kioxia in 2016. Kioxia's revenue will exceed $11 billion by 2022. Toshiba continues to provide mainly discrete semiconductor devices.
Fujitsu spun off its IC foundry business in 2014 and was subsequently acquired by UMC. Fujitsu and AMD formed a flash memory joint venture, Spansion. Spansion merged with Cypress Semiconductor in 2014, and Cypress was acquired by Infineon in 2020.
The relative stability of the semiconductor industry can be seen from the market shares of the top ten companies in 1984 and 2023. TI's share in 1984 was 9.3%. By 2023, Nvidia will have about 10.6% share. The combined market share of the top ten companies in 1984 was 63%. In 2023, this proportion will reach about 62%. Although the top companies have been relatively stable, the industry has grown from $26 billion in 1984 to $500 billion in 2023, an increase of almost 20 times.