Taipei, Jan. 18 (CNA) Taiwan-based integrated circuit designer MediaTek Inc. took eighth spot in the global semiconductor brand rankings in 2020, up five places from a year earlier, following an increase in year-on-year sales of almost 40 percent, according to global market information advisory firm Gartner Inc.
In a recent research report, Gartner said MediaTek and other smartphone chip designers, like U.S.-based Qualcomm Inc., benefited from record sales growth in 5G applications in 2020.
Data compiled by Gartner showed MediaTek posted U$11.01 billion in sales in 2020, up 38.3 percent from a year earlier to take a 2.4 percent share of the global semiconductor market.
It was the first time MediaTek has registered annual consolidated sales of more than US$10 billion. Last week, the Taiwanese IC designer announced it will give each of its employees NT$100,000 (US$3,571) as a reward after reaching the milestone, a move that will cost the company NT$1.7 billion.
As for Qualcomm, the American brand also enjoyed more than 30 percent year-on-year growth in 2020. Qualcomm posted US$17.91 billion in revenue, up 31.5 percent, to become the fifth largest IC brand, up one place from a year earlier, with a 4.0 percent market share, Gartner said.
According to Gartner, although COVID-19 impacted global demand, the semiconductor industry received a boost from the booming stay-at-home economy, with the rising popularity in remote work and online learning.
“In early 2020, the expectation was that COVID-19 would have a negative impact across all end equipment markets, but the actual effect was more nuanced,” Andrew Norwood, research vice president at Gartner, said in statement.
“Automotive, industrial and some areas of the consumer market were hit hard by reduced enterprise and consumer spending. However, lockdowns vastly increased work from home and e-learning, and any markets that facilitated those activities benefited,” Norwood said.
Strong demand for PCs due to increased work and study from home pushed up shipments of central computing units, dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips and NAND Flash to offset the impact from COVID-19, he added.
In 2020, sales generated by the global semiconductor industry rose 7.3 percent from a year earlier to US$449.84 billion, the data showed.
U.S.-based Intel Corp. retained the No. 1 title in 2020 after it posted US$70.24 billion in sales, up 3.7 percent from a year earlier, accounting for 15.6 percent of the market, Gartner said.
South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co. came second, unchanged from a year earlier, with 12.5 percent market share after generating US$56.20 billion in sales, up 7.7 percent from a year earlier, ahead of DRAM maker SK Hynix Inc. of South Korea (US$25.27 billion, up 13.3 percent), and American DRAM supplier Micron Technology Inc. (US$22.10 billion, up 9.1 percent), Gartner said.
