Despite a worldwide chip shortage, semiconductor sales cross $500 billion for the first time

Worldwide semiconductor revenue increased 25.1 per cent in 2021 to total $583.5 billion, crossing the $500 billion threshold for the first time, a Gartner report showed on Monday.

Samsung Electronics regained the top spot from Intel for the first time since 2018, with revenue increasing 31.6 per cent in 2021. Its memory revenue grew 34.2 per cent in 2021, in line with the growth rate of the overall memory market.

Intel dropped to the number two position with 0.5 per cent growth in 2021, delivering the lowest growth rate among the top 25 vendors.

"As the global economy bounced back in 2021, shortages appeared throughout the semiconductor supply chain, particularly in the automotive industry. The resulting combination of strong demand as well as logistics and raw material price increases drove semiconductors' average selling price higher (ASP), contributing to overall revenue growth in 2021," Andrew Norwood, research vice president at Gartner said in a statement.

Memory was again the best-performing device category, primarily due to increased server deployments by hyperscale cloud providers to satisfy remote working, learning and entertainment needs, as well as a surge in end-market demand for PCs and ultramobile. Revenue increased $42.1 billion over 2020, which amounted to 33.8 per cent of overall semiconductor revenue growth in 2021.

Within memory, DRAM had the best performance with revenue growth of 40.4 per cent in 2021, increasing revenue to $92.5 billion in 2021. Strong demand from servers and PCs created a DRAM undersupply that drove double-digit ASPs through most of the year.

The 5G smartphone market also helped drive semiconductor revenue, with unit production more than doubling to reach 555 million in 2021, compared to 250 million in 2020.

The US sanctions imposed on Huawei resulted in other Chinese smartphone OEMs gaining share and fuelling growth for 5G chipset vendors such as Qualcomm, MediaTek and Skyworks.

Meanwhile HiSilicon, Huawei's chip subsidiary, saw revenue decline from $8.2 billion in 2020 to around $1 billion in 2021.