SAN FRANCISCO — Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) and Hynix Semiconductor Inc. will finally break into the list of the world's top 10 semiconductor suppliers this year, according to a preliminary ranking from market research analyst iSuppli Corp.
AMD's semiconductor revenue is expected to increase by 90 percent in 2006, which will cause the company's ranking to jump eight places to seventh place, iSuppli (El Segundo, Calif.) said. Meanwhile, Hynix (Seoul, South Korea) is projected to achieve a 32.5 percent increase in revenue and move up three places to the No. 8 position, iSuppli said.
"This marks the first time in the six years iSuppli has been compiling annual semiconductor rankings that AMD and Hynix have rated among the top 10," said Dale Ford, vice president of market intelligence services for iSuppli.
The strong performance of the two companies comes amid renewed strength in worldwide semiconductor sales for the year, iSuppli said. The firm's revised estimate for semiconductor sales in 2006 projects revenue of $258.5 billion, up 9 percent from $237.3 billion in 2005. iSuppli previously forecasted 7.8 percent growth for the year.
AMD's revenues in 2006 are expected to increase to $7.5 billion, up $3.6 billion from $3.9 billion in 2005, according to iSuppli. AMD's rapid rise in revenue this year is due to strong growth in its microprocessor sales, combined with its acquisition of graphics chip maker ATI Technologies in October, the market research firm said. AMD (Santa Clara, Calif.) is expected to achieve approximately 37.5 percent growth in its microprocessor revenue in 2006 on the strength of its dual-core products, iSuppli said, but the addition of ATI's revenue was a more significant factor behind AMD's near-doubling in sales for the year.
According to iSuppli, AMD just missed making the top 10 in 2005 due to the sale of its Spansion flash-memory division.
Memory chip vendor Hynix is projected to achieve 2006 semiconductor revenue of $7.4 billion, up $1.8 billion from $5.6 billion in 2005, driven by surging sales of its lines of DRAM and NAND-type flash memory, iSuppli said. The firm projects Hynix's DRAM revenue will grow by $1.1 billion in 2006 and its NAND flash revenue will rise by $770 million.
Samsung Electronics Co Ltd., the world's leading supplier of memory chips, is expected to see its memory revenue increase by a smaller amount in 2006, $1.77 billion, iSuppli said.
"Hynix's achievement of surpassing the much-larger Samsung in terms of dollar growth in memory chip revenue in 2006 represents a considerable accomplishment," Ford said.
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