Worldwide semiconductor revenue totaled $255 billion in 2008, down 5.4% from the previous year, Gartner Inc. reported on April 8.
"The steep decline in the market in the final quarter of 2008, combined with the ongoing economic weakness, signals far worse declines in 2009," it said. "While sales held up fairly well in the first half of 2008, in the third quarter the industry started to soften as the economy slowed," Gartner analyst Peter Middleton said.
"By the fourth quarter, sales were deteriorating quickly, causing revenue growth to go into negative territory," he said. "With the market heavily impacted by the recession, we can expect considerable market consolidation going forward."
Gartner said Intel retained its number one position last year for the 17th consecutive year and increased its market share to 13.3% although its revenue declined 0.5% to $33.8 billion.
Samsung Electronics was next with a market share of 6.8%. Its revenue declined 15% to $17.3 billion.
Toshiba was number three with a 4.2% market share on revenue of $10.6 billion, a drop of 10.3%, followed by Texas Instruments, which also notched up a 4.2% market share on revenue of $10.5 billion.
Rounding out the list of top 10 semiconductor vendors were: STMicroelectronics (4% market share), Infineon Technologies (3.3%), Renesas Technology (2.8%), Qualcomm (2.5%), Hynix Semiconductor (2.4%) and NEC Electronics (2.3%.)
Hynix suffered a 34% drop in revenue, from $9.1 billion in 2007 to $6 billion last year. Qualcomm's revenue meanwhile grew 15.3% to $6.4 billion.
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2009
