The strongest growth came from analog with a 19% increase, closely followed by discretes, up 15% from 2021
Global research firm Gartner has now mentioned in its latest survey report that the global profit of semiconductors augmented to 1.1% in 2022 to total $601.7 billion, compared to $595 billion in 2021. When the major 25 semiconductor vendor’s revenues were collated, the survey found out that it accounted for 77.5 percent of the market and increased to 2.8 percent in 2022. The report also added that although Samsung Electronics’ revenue slumped to 10.4 percent in 2022, it retained the top spot.
Samsung’s profit decline was mostly due to decreasing demand and sales of NAND flash and memory. On the other hand, the US based global semiconductor firm Intel grabbed the second spot accounting for 9.7 percent of the share in the market. As the worldwide PC market contracted drastically, and the sturdy rat-race in its core x86 chipset businesses impacted the company’s revenue growth to 19.5 percent. The report exclusively highlighted that in 2022, memory spearheaded 25 percent of the semiconductor sales, whose sales reduced to a higher extent. Due to this fact, the device witnessed a revenue decrease of 10 percent.
As per a report on Gartner’s official website, By the middle of 2022, the memory market was already showing signs of a significant collapse in demand as electronic equipment OEMs started to deplete memory inventory they had been holding in anticipation of stronger demand. Conditions have now worsened to the point where most memory companies have announced capital expenditure (capex) reductions for 2023, and some have cut wafer production to reduce inventory levels and try to bring the markets back into balance.
In an interaction with the media, Andrew Norwood, VP Analyst at Gartner, said, "2022 began with many semiconductor devices in shortage resulting in extended lead times and increasing pricing which led to reduced electronic equipment production for many end markets. As a result, OEMs started hedging themselves from shortages by stockpiling chip inventory. However, by the second half of 2022, the global economy began to slow under the strain of high inflation, rising interest rates, higher energy costs and continued COVID-19 lockdowns in China, which impacted many global supply chains. Consumers also began to reduce spending, with PC and smartphone demand suffering, and then enterprises starting to reduce spending in anticipation of a global recession, all of which impacted overall semiconductor growth."
Overall non-memory revenue grew 5.3% in 2022, but the performance varied wildly across the different device categories. The strongest growth came from analog with a 19% increase, closely followed by discretes, up 15% from 2021. The growth for both analog and discretes was driven by strong demand from the automotive and industrial end markets underpinned by secular growth trends in vehicle electrification, industrial automation, and energy transition.
