The fastest growing top-20 company this year is forecast to be Nvidia, which is expected to grow 35%.
Nvidia is riding a surge of demand for its graphics processor devices (GPUs) and Tegra processors with its y-o-y sales in its latest quarter (ended October 30, 2016) up 63% for gaming, 193% for data center, and 61% for automotive applications.
The second-fastest growing top-20 company in 2016 is expected to be Taiwan-based MediaTek, which is forecast to grow 29%.
Although worldwide smartphone unit volume sales are expected to increase by only 4% this year, MediaTek’s application processor shipments to the fast-growing China-based smartphone suppliers are driving this exceptional growth.
Demonstrating a consolidation process is the fact that the 17 non-foundry companies in the forecasted top 20-ranking are expected to represent 68% of the total $357.1 billion worldwide semiconductor market this year, up 10 points from the 58% share the top 17 companies held in 2006
Nine of the top-20 companies are forecast to have sales of at least $10 billion this year.
It is expected to take about $4.5 billion in sales to make it into the 2016 top-20 semiconductor supplier list.
Overall, no new entrants are expected to make it into the top-20 ranking in 2016 as compared to the 2015 ranking
The top-20 ranking includes three pure-play foundries (TSMC, GlobalFoundries, and UMC) and five fabless companies.
If the three foundries were excluded from the top-20 ranking, AMD ($4,238 million), China-HiSilicon ($3,762 million), and Sharp ($3,706 million), would have been ranked in the 18th, 19th, and 20th positions, respectively.
Intel is expected to increase its lead over Samsung’s semiconductor sales from 24% in 2015 to 29% in 2016.
The biggest upward move in the ranking is forecast to be made by Apple, which is expected to jump up three positions in the 2016 ranking as compared to 2015.
Other companies that are forecast to make noticeable moves up the ranking include MediaTek and Nvidia, with each company expected to improve by two positions.
Apple is an anomaly in that it designs and uses its processors only in its own products. IC Insights estimates that Apple’s custom ARM-based SoC processors will have a “sales value” of $6.5 billion in 2016, which will place them in the 14th position in the forecasted top-20 ranking.
