Intel retained the top spot as the largest semiconductor firm, beating Samsung for the second consecutive year after losing the position for two years from 2018-19. Intel’s revenue continued to grow, reaching another all-time high of $70,244 million in 2020. Although Samsung’s earnings also saw an uptick after a disastrous 2019, it was far from enough to topple Intel.
Samsung followed Intel with yearly revenue of $60,482 in 2020, with TSMC ranked third with a revenue of $45,420 in FY2020. Compared to 2019, the Taiwanese foundry saw yearly growth of 31% as it continued to be the largest pure-play foundry.
Qualcomm had a healthy year as well, with its revenue soaring by 35%, pushing it above Broadcom to the 6th rank. Among all the chipmakers in the top-15, NVIDIA had the most explosive growth, with an uplift of 50% in revenue, buoying it up to the 8th spot (from #10 in 2019). Mediatek and Apple also saw ample growth, but the name worth mentioning is of course AMD whose revenue grew by a massive 41% to $9.5 billion, going from #18 in 2019 to #15 in 2020.
The top-ten rankings from Garter are slightly different as you move down the ladder. MediaTek and Texas Instruments have been ranked ahead of NVIDIA which comes in at #10, while TSMC is nowhere to be seen. AMD of course isn’t anywhere in the rankings either, not surprising considering that it only includes only the ten largest semiconductor companies rather than the top-15 like IC Insights.
