Market News
Samsung, Apple dominated chip buying in 2014
January 22, 2015 | Peter Clarke | 222906974
Between them Samsung and Apple consumed 17 percent of total semiconductor production by value in 2014, according to Gartner Inc.
Much of this consumption would have been for inclusion in tablet computers and smartphones, which are changed by many consumers every two years or more frequently.
Samsung Electronics and Apple remained the top two chip buyers in 2014 and together consumed $57.9 billion of semiconductors in 2014, and increase of 7.2 percent from $54.0 billion in 2013.
The ranking was largely unchanged although Huawei climbed to spots to 7th and LG Electronics climbed one spot to 9th in the ranking. To make room Cisco Systems fell from 7th to 8th and Toshiba went from 9th to 10th.
The top 10 companies bought $125.6 billion of semiconductors and accounted for 37 percent of semiconductor chip vendors' worldwide revenue in 2014. This was up from $114.8 billion, accounting for 36.4 percent in 2013.
Preliminary ranking of top 10 companies by semiconductor purchasing worldwide in 2014 (billions of dollars). Source: Gartner.
"Samsung Electronics and Apple have topped the semiconductor consumption table for four consecutive years and their decisions have considerable technology and pricing implications for the whole semiconductor industry," said Masatsune Yamaji, principal research analyst at Gartner, in a statement. "However, while Samsung Electronics kept its position as the No. 1 largest customer of semiconductor chip vendors, its growth rate in 2014 was lower than the global semiconductor market's growth, firstly because it struggled in the smartphone market, and secondly because it is withdrawing from some parts of the PC market."
