Last year, semiconductor revenue reached $318.1 billion

According to the market research institute IHS, global semiconductor revenue increased by 5% in 2013, among which the best performing memory chip products.

In 2013, total semiconductor revenue reached US$318.1 billion, an increase of 5% from US$303.1 billion in 2012, effectively reversing the development trend of the industry. Semiconductor revenue in 2012 decreased by 2.4% from 310.1 billion US dollars in 2011.

The total revenue of the 25 largest chip makers reached US$225.3 billion, accounting for 71% of the industry’s total revenue. The chipmaker with the highest revenue is Intel. Its 2013 revenue was 47 billion U.S. dollars, and its corresponding market share was 15%.

Dale Ford, vice president of IHS, said: "The memory IC is a key factor in the growth of the semiconductor industry. DRAM is the highest revenue growth product in memory products. Due to the balance between supply and demand, the revenue of such products soared by 32.5%. The revenue of NAND flash products increased by 24.2% due to the increasing memory demand for smartphones and tablets.

Thanks to the outstanding performance of the memory market, the major memory suppliers have also achieved growth in performance. Due to strong organic growth and the acquisition of Elpida, Micron’s memory revenue increased by 108.5%, and its market ranking also rose from tenth to fourth place in 2012.

Due to the organic growth of 42.8%, South Korea's Hynix's market ranking rose from seventh to fifth. All in all, the memory vendors occupy three of the top five seats in the semiconductor market.

Among the top 25 semiconductor manufacturers, California’s Qualcomm and Taiwan’s MediaTek have performed very well, mainly because their performance in the field of wireless device chips is ahead of the market. Qualcomm’s growth rate was 30.6%, maintaining its position as No. 3; MediaTek rose to No. 14 with a growth rate of 36.1%.

On the contrary, Japanese chip makers generally performed poorly in 2013. Renesas Electronics, Sony and Roma Semiconductor's revenue in 2013 fell by 13.7%, 27% and 14.4%, respectively. Renesas Electronics declined from sixth place to tenth place.

The total revenue of semiconductor suppliers headquartered in the Asia-Pacific region increased by 14.7%, and their combined market share reached 25.3%, setting a record high. This is also the first time that the global share of semiconductor revenue in the Asia-Pacific region exceeds 25%.

The total revenue of semiconductor suppliers headquartered in the Americas increased by 8.7%, and their total market share was 52.4%. Japan’s semiconductor supplier’s total revenue decreased by 17.9%.